The Descent From Truth (25 page)

She looked at him with what seemed to be recognition. “You are hurt.”

“Not bad. You need to find something, a knife or a saw, and cut these cords.”

She looked as if she was going to stand but sank back down, her gaze locked on his bloody side. She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, and began rocking to and fro, her breath coming in great, heaving gasps.

Little by little, Alex rolled his body across what seemed an endless stretch of uneven concrete, every inch an agonizing, Herculean effort. He had to reach the telephone in the far corner of the garage, knock it off its perch, and make a call before he blacked out from loss of blood. Behind him, he heard Pia’s gasping breath, a steady rhythm like her mindless rocking.

Chapter 32

Three weeks passed, and Alex’s father pushed him in a wheelchair along the hallway of a Denver hospital. A glass wall overlooked the hospital’s side lawn where January sunlight reflected off a fresh coat of snow.

Alex closed his eyes and let scattered memories click into place. His father and Lois had flown to Lima, Lois to accompany him home on an air-ambulance flight and his father to escort Pia along their prearranged backdoor route through Mexico. Faust’s bullet, a glancing hit, had shattered two of Alex’s ribs but was stopped by a third, an inch shy of his heart. Pia had no serious physical injuries, and Alex’s father had assured him that, though her emotional trauma lingered, she was recovering in a psychiatric facility a short distance across town.

The elder Bryson locked the wheelchair’s brake and circled around to sit on a bench facing Alex. “They tell me you’re ready to leave this place.”

“None too soon,” Alex said. “How’s Freddy?”

The reference to Frederick brought a slow smile to the colonel’s time-creased features. “He’s great. But while you goofed off in a hospital bed, a lot’s been going on. I saved this for you.” He handed Alex a week-old copy of the
Los Angeles Times
. A front-page article described a major battle between the Peruvian Army and Shining Path rebels, pivotal in that country’s decades-old civil war. The writer described stunning government success using helicopter-borne troops who attacked the rebels’ flanks to cut off retreat, and helicopter gunships that decimated their forces and disrupted their command-and-staff operation.

“Looks like that faulty guidance circuitry did the trick,” Alex said.

His father nodded. “The rebels may have discovered the ruse and realized too late that the chips were useless. Or they might have learned about it when they tried to use them. Either way, they got taken to the cleaners.”

“That should make for some disgruntled rebel commanders.”

“We amplified their unhappiness quotient. The day after the battle, Intelligence sent Dominga Koenig a letter thanking her for her cooperation. We e-mailed the Peruvian government a recommendation that she be decorated for helping trick the bad guys with the faulty chips. Then we made sure the press got their hands on both messages.”

“Koenig’s wife?” Alex recalled the image he’d seen on television of the woman thanking the American people for their support after claiming Frederick was on his way to Peru. “Why her?”

“Couple of days after we got you back to the States, she started linking up with Faust’s old contacts—mercenaries, arms dealers, and so on. Looks like she took over his role as Shining Path’s patron. Meanwhile, private detectives have been snooping around, asking about you. And my Pentagon contacts say there’s been an unauthorized scan of your military records. We figure she was looking for you to make doubly sure Freddy’s not breathing. Eliminate a potential rival for her husband’s estate.”

“Then we’d better keep a low profile. How soon can Pia leave that psychiatric hospital?”

“Anytime. She’s still there strictly for security reasons.”

“All right, let’s hit the road. We’ll hide for awhile, see how things shake out.”

* * *

To foil Dominga Koenig’s thugs, Alex’s father arranged for a woman and man of Pia’s and Alex’s approximate sizes to act as body doubles for a day. The woman entered the psychiatric hospital during the afternoon shift change. The man did the same at Alex’s hospital. Wearing pajamas and a hospital robe, the man was wheeled out the emergency entrance with Colonel Bryson at his side and loaded into a government-issue, four-door sedan. They drove to the psychiatric hospital and retrieved the make-believe Pia.

Meanwhile the real Pia, dressed as a teenager, exited through the psychiatric hospital’s visitor’s entrance and caught a cab. An older woman, an armed private detective, accompanied her so they would be taken as mother and daughter. Alex left his hospital as part of a group on a church-sponsored tour. Using a cane and moving slowly in deference to his still-dodgy balance, he got off the church bus at a busy intersection where a friend of his father’s waited with a car. They pulled into a shopping center parking lot only minutes ahead of Pia’s taxi.

She darted from the cab to his car and plastered herself against Alex, being careful of his wound. They had talked daily on the telephone, but this was the first time they’d been together since returning to the U.S. Alex felt her tremble as she had that first day when he’d found her near-frozen in the high country. He held her while their driver maneuvered along a circuitous route that would enable him to spot any tail.

They checked into a suburban hotel, where Alex’s father met them. The colonel got Alex back into bed and ordered dinner delivered to the room. “I’ve got a friend in Wyoming,” he said while they waited for room service, he sitting in a chair that he had pulled close to the bed, Pia sitting on the edge of the bed and clasping Alex’s hand with both of hers. “His name’s Furstenberg. A professor at Wyoming State University. We’ll pick up Freddy in the morning, and I’ll drive you up there.”

“Wyoming?” Alex frowned. “Wouldn’t a populous area be better? We could get lost more easily.”

The colonel shook his head. “They’ll expect you to gravitate to a city. The Koenig woman has tremendous resources. Her people will sort through my network of official contacts, check everyone I’ve worked with. Furstenberg is one of the few friends with whom I’ve never had an official relationship. None of their leads will take them there.”

“Makes sense.”

“I’d planned on getting you up there anyway. I want Pia to spend some time with Furstenberg.”

Alex wasn’t surprised. He’d expected his father’s plan would involve something more than simply sending them out of harm’s way. “What’s special about this guy?”

“Professor of clinical psychology. Absolute first rate. He can handle Pia’s counseling.” The colonel patted her hand and shifted his attention back to Alex. “He has clout with the university. He’ll cut through the red tape to get you into their economics program. That is, if you haven’t lost your ambition.”

Nine years had elapsed since Alex, then a fresh Army recruit, had told his father he wanted to be an economist. That his father remembered caused Alex to choke up. He took a moment before addressing Pia. “Honey, you ready to—”

She shushed him with the wave of an arm. Largely ignored by the trio, a television anchorman was presenting the evening news. On the screen, firemen and policemen rushed about in front of a flaming mansion. Flames shot from windows on the building’s top floor. Pia turned up the volume.

“Tragedy strikes the owner of Silver Hill Ski Resort, a favorite winter playground for many of our viewers,” the announcer said. “In the latest of a series of terrorist incidents, Shining Path, a rebel group that has battled the government of Peru for almost half a century, claims credit for a rocket attack in suburban Lima. The attack claimed the life of Maximillian Koenig, the sole owner of Variant Corporation, the international conglomerate that bought Silver Hill last year.”

“They got the wrong villain,” Alex murmured. He suspected that he and his father were thinking the same thing: an attempt to eliminate Dominga Koenig had instead made her more powerful. With Frederick presumed to be dead, she would inherit her deceased husband’s assets. All that money would make it easy to pacify disgruntled elements in Shining Path. Using her new wealth and influence, she could resuscitate her family’s political fortunes.

But that wasn’t his concern. What mattered was that Frederick was safe, and the attempt to hijack Peru’s rare-earth deposits had been sidetracked.

“Last year, in the United States,” the anchor said, “Shining Path was suspected of kidnapping the Koenigs’ year-old son. The allegation, which prompted a brief diplomatic furor, was later retracted, but neither the child nor his nanny has been seen since. Both are presumed dead at the hands of the rebels. This has been a special newsbreak from KLR News Scope One.”

“Hear that, darling?” Pia said, her fingers toying with the back of Alex’s neck. “We’re dead. Now we can get on with our lives.”

About the Author:

Gaylon Greer’s diverse experiences with traveling carnivals, itinerant farm labor gangs, and military life provide constant grist for his imagination and an ample supply of personalities for his fictional characters. A Middle School dropout who returned to the classroom as an adult, he earned a doctoral degree in economics and served a stint as a university professor but resigned from an endowed chair at The University of Memphis to write full time. Greer is the author of numerous professional books and articles and one previous novel. He lives and writes in Austin, Texas.

Other Books by this Author:

The Price of Sanctuary

Connect with Gaylon Greer Online:

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