Mrs. John Doe (27 page)

Jeff would know what to do, but he was too far away, in the car in the forest. Josef had been struck on the right side of his chest near his shoulder. The bullet must still be in there, and his fall had reactivated the bleeding in the wound below it. Nora had no idea how much blood he'd lost, but the small pool on the concrete floor beside him didn't bode well. A swift glance at the two men in the office told her that they would only try to detain her, and they'd succeed. She ignored them.

A phone? In the office with the Cowpers. Did Mustapha have a cellphone? She quickly searched the body, rummaging through his pockets. She found a wallet and coins and a ring of keys—one of them must be for the Aston Martin—but nothing else. No matter; again, any call to the authorities would be too late. She didn't know whom to call anyway.

The roar of the engines outside grew in volume, then subsided. The plane was moving away on the tarmac. She stood up and threw the door open, peering out through the rain. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, but from the condition of the sky, it might as well have been midnight. She saw the lights on the wings of the aircraft moving slowly, steadily off down the runway on her left, inland, which would be west. Nora looked the other way. Yes, that was the North Sea; she could just make out the gray water in the distance beyond the runway. They would take off in that direction.

She pictured it in her mind. The plane would taxi down to the far end of the runway and turn around. Then it would glide forward, accelerating as it moved. The runway wasn't that long, not even a mile, so the pilot would need most of its length to get up to speed for the takeoff. Which meant the plane would still be racing along the ground when it reached this spot, the halfway point directly in front of her, where it had been sitting moments ago.

She looked around the hangar. A Cessna twin-engine and a Sopwith Camel, or whatever the hell it was; she had no idea how to operate them. There was a pickup truck outside, next to the gas tank, but that would belong to the two men in the office, who were still shouting and banging on the glass. They weren't about to give her the keys, and she didn't have her husband's talent for hot-wiring. Which left only…

She looked down at the key ring in her hand. Oh God! she thought. Nora, what the hell are you doing?

On the floor beside her, Josef Abrams stirred. He moaned, rolling onto his side. “Mrs. Baron?”

Nora knelt beside him. “I'm here, Josef, but I have to leave you for a while. Don't move. I'll take you to a doctor as soon as I get back.”
If
I get back, she thought.

“You have to—you have to stop them,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Nora said. “I know. Hush now. Be still. I'll be right back.” She looked down at his pained face, remembering the photo of the pretty young woman in Israel. She touched his hot cheek briefly with her hand, and then she was up and running.

Mustapha's bullet had grazed her left arm above the elbow, and she could feel the throbbing pain of it as blood trickled down her forearm under her jacket. Oh well, she was alive and mobile, and there wasn't any time to examine it now. She ran out into the rain, around the side of the hangar toward the low-slung gold car. James Bond's car, she thought. Bill Howard's car, his status symbol, his reward to himself for selling out his own country, and hers. She nearly ran to the left side of the car, then pivoted and headed for the right-side door. This was an English car, and everything was the other way around. Oh God, oh God, oh God…

She was in the car, fumbling with the keys. She found the correct one and felt around for the ignition. There! The engine came alive. She felt for the gearshift, wincing as the pain shot down her left arm. Another stick shift, of course. Left and forward for first gear.

The plane reached the end of the runway and turned around. She couldn't hear it from this distance, but she knew its engines were racing, building power. In order to be effective, her next moves would have to be perfectly timed. It's just like the theater, she thought. I'm starring in a new play called
Mrs. John Doe
, and this is opening night. Closing night too. One performance only.

Nora sat in the car, holding her breath, thinking about her family. She recalled the face of her daughter as a baby, a toddler, a teenager, and as she was today, age twenty. Dana was a strong young woman, a remarkable human being with all of life ahead of her. Then Nora thought of Jeff, her husband, her lover, her soulmate, the only man in the world. I don't know if I'll ever see either of you again, she silently told them, but please know that I loved you. Always remember that.

She waited until she saw the lights on the wings slowly begin moving forward. She couldn't see the aircraft itself from this distance in the rainy darkness, only those tiny lights, and this was a good thing: If she couldn't see them, they couldn't see her.

The pounding in her chest caused a wrenching pain with each heartbeat, and she had to force her paralyzed hands to function. She gripped the steering wheel tightly as she eased her left foot up from the clutch and her right foot down on the accelerator, gliding smoothly forward. The wingtip lights approached on her left, gaining speed as they came at her. She pushed the door beside her open as she rolled slowly, carefully out into the center of the runway. She stopped the car, cut the engine, and swung her legs out onto the tarmac. She launched herself up and out of the low-slung vehicle, but she didn't find her balance; she lurched clumsily forward, throwing out her hands to break her fall, sprawling facedown on the wet asphalt. A numbing jolt of agony shot up her injured arm, so intense that she almost lost consciousness. She drew in a great gulp of air, clearing her mind.

The roar of the plane grew louder, louder. Adrenaline suffused her, galvanizing her as the automatic actions of sheer necessity took over. With a sharp cry of pain, Nora pushed down with her hands, forcing her body up from the ground. She regained her feet and took off at a dead run, sprinting toward the hangar. She'd never run this fast in her life, and yet it seemed to take forever; the open doorway before her appeared to be moving away from her even as her pumping legs closed the distance. She was nearly to the door when the awful sounds reached her. There was a sudden screech as the pilot finally saw the car in his path and hit his brakes, but the plane was traveling much too fast by now. She heard a second shriek of tires on the slick asphalt as the aircraft veered, attempting to avoid the obstruction. She arrived at the hangar doorway and whirled around just in time to see the heavy plane slide sideways into the car and topple over onto it.

The two vehicles skittered down the runway together, and the plane's right wing snapped off, flying away toward the far end of the hangar. The Aston Martin disappeared, crushed under the mighty weight, and sparks flew up all around it as metal was wrenched against metal. The boom of the impact would be heard for miles in this flat landscape. Farther off, near the big round fuel storage tank, the wing smashed to the ground and its engine burst into flames. The crumpled wreck of the plane and the car exploded in a sudden, blinding flash of light.

Nora felt the blast of intense heat an instant before she heard the accompanying sound. She was thrown backward through the open door, into the hangar, and she landed hard on top of the dead man inside the doorway. The first explosion sent a ball of fire straight up into the sky, and chunks of burning metal shot out in all directions. Nora rolled off the body and away from the open door, crawling toward Josef, as the windows of the roll-up doors behind her imploded and sheets of glass flew across the room. One, two, three huge crashes sounded as parts of the plane smashed into the tin walls of the hangar, denting the corrugated metal inward. A second explosion from the wreckage brought more flames shooting in through the open door.

Nora was on her feet. She ran over to the office door, wresting the crowbar out of the padlock socket. The two men tumbled out, shouting curses. The younger one was raising his fist to strike her when the biggest explosion occurred, knocking all three of them back against the office wall.

The farthest wall from where they were standing crumpled inward, bringing flames and black smoke into the room, and the entire building began to sag sideways. That must have been the big, round fuel storage tank at that end, Nora thought, remembering the burning wing of the plane that had landed beside it. She stared at the gaping hole, and then she moved.

“Help me!” she shouted at the two men as she ran over to Josef. “Please, help me with him!”

The Cowpers were not sticking around to assist her. They pushed past her and scurried out the back door of the hangar as fast as they could. Nora was relieved to see that Josef's eyes were open; he was already struggling to rise. She took his hand firmly in her own and heaved him to his feet. The smoke and flames increased, and the stench of burning fuel filled the room, what remained of it. The ancient biplane was on fire, and the twin-engine would soon join it. She staggered toward the back door, dragging Josef along. He leaned heavily against her, but at least his legs were moving. Two more explosions in the distance, beyond the wall of flames that had just been the wall of the hangar: The truck and the planes outside were going the way of the fuel tank.

Nora stumbled out through the rear door, pulling Josef with her, and not a moment too soon. The rain poured down on them as the tearing, screeching sounds began behind them, followed by an unearthly clatter as the roof collapsed and tons of steel beams and corrugated tin smashed down to the floor. She circled Josef's waist with her good arm, half dragging him out across the field, toward the trees. If I can just get him into the woods, she thought, I can find the car.

No need. She felt another thrill of relief when she saw the bright headlights zigzagging through the forest ahead of them, and she heard the car's engine. Two more explosions behind them—the planes in the hangar, she guessed—and the remaining metal walls toppled to the ground. She could feel the blast of heat on her back, even at this distance. The headlights bobbed some more, then the brown Focus burst through the trees, bearing down on them. She blinked in the dazzle of the lights as the car came to a lurching stop. Jeff opened the driver's door and started to get out.

“Move over!” Nora cried. She opened the rear door and helped Josef in, then threw herself into the front seat beside her husband. He was now in the passenger seat, pulling his injured right leg after him with both hands. Nora grasped the steering wheel with her right hand, reaching down with her left hand for the shifting lever, grateful that the Focus was an automatic, and swung the car around toward the driveway.

The hangar was gone now, engulfed by the flames that shot up into the rainy sky. Beyond it, on the runway, the other fire still burned, the remains of the plane and the Aston Martin. Not to mention the remains of Nassim Gamal, his two lackeys, the pilot, and Bill Howard. She glanced back at the conflagration, not at all disturbed by the uncharitable thought that arrived in her mind:
Good riddance
.

They passed the Cowpers, father and son, running madly along the road toward the motorway. Jeff glanced out at them and turned to Nora. “Who the hell are these guys? Should we pick them up?”

“Not a chance!” she cried. “Let them run for it, the cowards!” She made the turn onto the motorway and floored it, putting distance between them and the fire. “I don't think I've ever been as happy to see you as I was just now.”

Despite his pain, Jeff managed to laugh. “I saw your fireworks and thought I'd join the party. What the hell happened back there?”

She shrugged. “Oh, you know me. I can never turn down a good part. Sigourney Weaver was busy, so I filled in for her.” Then she said, “Mustapha shot Josef, and I shot him.” She told him the rest: the Aston Martin, the plane, the burning hangar. “Bill's dead—they're all dead. I never even killed a cockroach before today, but I've killed seven people in the last two hours. I don't know how I feel about that, but now we have to find a hospital. Josef's lost a lot of blood, and your leg needs looking at, and I'm not feeling so hot either.”

He looked over at her, staring at her left sleeve, which was now red with blood.

“Don't panic,” she said, repeating his words to her two hours ago. “It's not as bad as it looks.”

He grinned at her in his usual way, but his voice was filled with wonder and new respect. “You're quite the action hero, Pal!”

Nora smiled weakly over at him, then stared out at the landscape beyond the windshield wipers, blinking away tears of relief. She was here, in this car with her husband, and she would see her daughter again after all. Now she knew that there really were things worth dying for. She'd heard that cliché many times, but as with so many clichés, it was astonishingly true. She glanced in the rearview mirror to check on Josef Abrams, who was stretched out across the backseat, asleep or unconscious, she didn't know which. She silently prayed for him.

Jeff said, “There's a town up ahead.”

Nora nodded, but she didn't say anything. She concentrated on driving and ignored the throbbing pain from the torn flesh above her left elbow. The lights of the village grew brighter in the wet windshield. They were nearly there when the first responders passed them, police cars and fire engines screaming by in the opposite direction. She watched in the rearview mirror as they flew off toward the massive column of smoke and flame that billowed up into the angry sky.

Six days, she thought. Six days since that phone call on June 29. It had all happened in a mere six—

Something occurred to her at that moment, and she actually began to laugh.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Today is the Fourth of July!”

Nora had never been in an official plane before, and she admitted to herself that she could definitely get used to it. She'd slept most of the way, on a plush couch along one sleek wall. Jeff had stayed awake in his seat, reading his precious Hemingway, but she'd stretched out somewhere over the Brittany coast and was soon dreaming.

She dreamed of hospital rooms, several of them. First, there were the ones in the village in Norfolk, where Jeff and Josef had recuperated for a week after surgery while she stayed in a charming room above a local pub called the Three Crowns. She'd spent every day at their bedsides when they weren't being debriefed by an international phalanx of officials: MI6, SDAT, Mossad, CIA. Nora had been questioned as well; she'd told her story several times. The Cowpers were to be given a new airfield in exchange for their silence.

The agencies had decided that Bill Howard's deal with the terrorists should be kept top secret. As far as the world was concerned, the whole affair had never happened. The Howards, Maurice Dolin, Claudia Bellini, Solange Braure, and Craig Elder had been killed in an unfortunate accident in Norfolk while taking off for a pleasure trip to Monte Carlo. That was the official story, and Mme. Dolin suddenly announced to the French press that she'd found a note from her missing husband, confirming it. Trevor Markham had died in his nursing home of natural causes.

The stitches along the three-inch slice on Nora's left arm just above her elbow didn't itch as much as she'd expected. She decided she was going to like having the scar, a memento of her great adventure. She'd Skyped with Dana every day, promising to be home soon. Dana had been full of news about a new young man, someone named Phil, and Nora hoped he turned out to be a better prospect than the last one. Privately, she was simply grateful that she once again had something so routine and maternal to occupy her thoughts.

At the end of their week of recovery, Josef had been bundled into a car to London, to a waiting EL AL jetliner. Jeff had shaken his hand and Nora had kissed him, smiling at the thought of the delighted girl who'd greet him at the end of his journey. He'd sustained no permanent damage; he'd be in good shape in time for his wedding in December. He'd invited them to attend it in Tel Aviv, and they'd promised to make every effort to be there.

Then there had been the hospital room in London, where Andy Gilbert was a less-than-gracious patient. His ribs were mending and the concussion was gone. He was too big for his bed, too big for the room, and he just wanted to go home. He had a wife, Nora had been grateful to discover, a fellow Jamaican named Hope who had been surprisingly polite to the woman who'd struck and nearly killed her husband. Nora had taken Hope out to lunch while Jeff stayed at Andy's bedside, where he soon learned never to play poker with the man.

Jeff had seen a famous specialist in London, who'd arranged for an equally famous colleague in New York to perform a second surgery on Jeff's right knee. There would be some pins and a plastic part, but with practice, he'd be walking normally in a matter of months. He was told he'd have to take things more slowly, and he'd accepted this with grace. He'd made arrangements to transfer to a desk job at the CIA's field office in New York City. Nora was secretly delighted.

They'd stayed at the Byron, in their usual room, and Lonny Tindall and his family had made a fuss over them. Nora had presented Lonny with a new laptop that his brothers had told her he'd been coveting, and he'd been endlessly grateful. He never asked for any more details of their shared exploits, and Nora never offered them.

One day in London, Nora had taken a cab to a house in the East End. She met a woman named Helen Belmont, the daughter of Trevor Markham, the dead man who'd posed as John Doe, and presented her with his ashes in a silver urn. Mrs. Belmont thanked her, admitting that she'd never known her father, the MI6 agent, very well—her late mother had thrown him out many years earlier, when his drinking had become too much. She promised to keep the urn in a place of pride on her mantel, and she was moved by the news of her estranged father's final act for his country and the world. Nora told this woman every classified detail; it was the least she could do for the man.

After leaving Mrs. Belmont's house, Nora had gone to a cemetery in another part of London and placed flowers on the grave of her friend, Vivian Howard. Her husband hadn't been buried here, nor would he be; they hadn't found enough of him to fill a coffin. Nora didn't know where Craig Elder was buried, and she didn't care. She'd sent flowers to Claudia Bellini's husband and son.

The final hospital room had been in Paris, after she and Jeff had taken their leave of Andy and Hope Gilbert and the boisterous Tindall clan. They'd gone to France and spent the morning with Jacques Lanier before being flown home by the American military. Nora had met the wonderful Marianne and the son whose Renault had been retrieved from the woods by the autoroute. And she'd met grandsons, three of them, who'd fallen in love with Jeff and wanted to know all about his life as a spy.

Jacques's chest wound had been serious, nearly fatal; his days as a field operative were over. He and Jeff had commiserated about that and swapped war stories while the grandsons had eagerly listened. His future would be at home, with his family, which he thought was fine. Marianne thought it was fine too—a sentiment Nora fully understood. As Jacques had confided to Nora, “At my age, one should break it easy.”

“
Take
it easy,” Nora had corrected before kissing his cheek and handing over the gift she'd brought him, a dictionary of American slang.

Now, at last, the federal government plane touched down at an airfield on Long Island. Nora wasn't surprised to find her car waiting on the tarmac at the foot of the stairway, a marine standing beside it with her keys. Two other marines helped Jeff descend the stairs with his crutches, and they got him into the passenger seat. Nora thanked them, smiling at their crisp salutes, and headed for the expressway.

They didn't speak on the drive home; they merely sat together in comfortable silence, the silence that only comes from twenty-one years of unconditional love. She reached up to touch the gold locket:
Always keep me close to your heart
.

She thought about her strange journey, the lies and secrets, the disguises and the urgency and the violence. She thought of the people she'd killed, knowing that she'd grow used to the fact. This was what her husband did, and Jacques and Josef and all the others. They did what was necessary, then they moved on. Nora was determined to do that as well. She was a wife, a mother, an actor, and a teacher, but now she was also an honorary secret agent.

They'd spend a quiet August together, then he'd be off to the city for his new desk job and Nora would be back in her classroom. She was looking forward to it, a new group of bright young people who wanted to learn how to lie for a living. Well, she thought, they're coming to the right place. I can teach them that.

She smiled over at her husband and broke the silence. “Welcome home, Mr. Doe.”

The July sun bore down on the car, and the scent of salt air from the Sound arrived as she left the highway for the beach road. In minutes, she was turning into their driveway. She grinned at the sight of the lone figure waving dramatically from the widow's walk at the top of the house. While Nora parked and went around to help Jeff out of the car, their beautiful daughter raced down the stairs and threw open the front door to greet them.