The Overseer (44 page)

Behind the letter, she discovered pages and pages of notes. All in Italian. She tucked them into her jacket, closed the drawer, and stood.

An instant later, she was on her knees.

The first blow to her back had been enough to daze her, the second to disorient. She turned, just in time to ward off the third, her instincts to lunge at the figure above her. Her gloves found flesh, a weathered neck, her grip tight enough to bring the figure to its knees. The face now came clear, an older woman, jet black hair, thick cheeks.

Clara Huber was no longer putting up a fight.

Janet stared into Huber’s eyes, uncertain what she should do. There had been no instructions, no contingency plans.
“Notes, Italian, a small book.”
Nothing more. For an eerie few seconds, she simply held her grip. Soon, other words began to drift into her head.
There must always be a place for sacrifice
. Words to calm her.

Without thought, Janet Grant drove her thumbs up into Clara Huber’s windpipe and twisted. A single snap and the eyes glazed over.

Again, Janet looked at the face in her hands. No questions, no remorse. She placed it on the floor and checked her watch. Eight minutes.

The old man would be pleased.

 

He had disposed of the computer in one of the terminal rest rooms—another bit of advice from Feric—and had taken the opportunity to trim his beard, wet down his hair. Now, as he stood at the American Airlines counter, he actually resembled the picture from one of the many passports Feric had kept hidden within the rucksack. With a few bills from the wad of cash he had found there as well, he bought a ticket for the twelve o’clock to New York. It would mean a stop in London, a layover of about an hour and a half, but Xander knew it was smarter to spend the time there than here. They would no doubt be returning to the airport to find out what had happened to their quarry. He had no choice but to take the earliest flight possible.

To his relief, the woman behind the counter showed no surprise at either his payment in cash or his lack of luggage, more concerned with both his good fortune at finding a seat at so late a date and his promise to be at the gate fifteen minutes before takeoff. A smile sufficed as assurance, all the while his shoulders growing less and less comfortable in the pants and turtleneck. He had been in the clothes for less than seven hours, but they were already giving off a rather distinct pong, and he had no intention of finding out how far he could stretch the limits of good taste during the
ten-hour
flight. More to the point, he knew it would be a good idea to alter his appearance. And remove the beard. Another cue from Feric. With just under an hour before takeoff, he had more than enough time and cash to remedy the situation.

Heading for the escalator and the stores one floor down, he suddenly remembered the second volume of the manuscript, conveniently forgotten in the mayhem of the past five hours. There had been no time, no energy to think of it. A day ago, he would never have permitted himself such a lapse. Now… He forced his mind to focus on the practical, Feric’s dying order
displacing
any theoretical yearnings.
Sarah. Get back to the States and find Sarah.

The memory of her eyes from Florence suddenly flooded back—
confusion
, loss. Eyes he had seen only minutes ago, this time, though, on a
different
woman. And yet somehow the same—the anguish, the terror. He wondered how many times
his
Sarah had been forced to kill? How often had she let one slip away?
Put it behind you!
Another internal command.
You have no time for it!

The contact numbers began to race through his mind. Reaching the lower level, Xander headed toward a bank of phones. Once again focused, he calmly checked his surroundings and moved to the leftmost cubicle. Satisfied, he removed the receiver and punched in the first string of numbers. Every so often, he paused as instructed, dial tones and clicks ringing in the earpiece before he could enter the next set in the series. After several minutes, the sound of transatlantic static hovered on the line, a hum to accompany the final connection. Two rings later, the line engaged and a voice answered.

“There appears to be a receiver off the hook. If you are trying—”

He typed in the last four numbers and waited. Fifteen seconds later, a second recorded voice interrupted.

“Monica on the line. I trust all is well.” Xander hit several buttons and waited for the message.

 

The sign on the door had said
CHAMPAGNE
, the shadowed light of the
basement
corridor having been enough to distinguish each of the separate holding pens: German whites, French reds, roughly ten rooms, from the little Sarah had been able to see, her own cavern fitted with stool and seven or eight near-finished wine shelves propped up against a far wall—a work still in progress. For the time being, though, the room served as a makeshift cell for one. A tiny window was tucked in at the ceiling, no lock needed for an opening too narrow for any but a child to squeeze through. Even so, the gravel drive above was not exactly suited for inconspicuous escape, a good ten feet of floodlit area between house and trees. The
window
was
not
a possibility.

Nor was it a concern. Sitting on the stool, Sarah had given no time to studying the room around her. Instead—back against the wall, eyes fixed on a spot directly across from her—she had replayed the conversation from
dinner
over and over in her mind. It had been nearly an hour since Tieg’s
revelation
, but her expression had remained unchanged, no emotion surfacing to cloud her thoughts. Only the conversation. Only Tieg’s words. And with each subsequent rehashing, the strains of a once-familiar voice had grown louder and louder, echoes of a past fighting to break free from the tattered shelter of an overprotective psyche.
You should have seen them—the sudden shift in his mood, the spilled glass
. A voice that demanded control.
Seven years away have made you slow, unaware.
The words were direct.
It all happened too fast for you, the warning too late. All unacceptable.
With each rebuke, the voice gained greater command, claimed a sense of belonging.
The three of them together—you should have known; it was too easy, too …

And yet, only Tieg had known. Votapek and Sedgewick had been as much in the dark as she had.
Only he had known.
It was a less severe voice that broke through, a voice that had kept the demons at bay for so long and that now reasserted itself.
Concentrate on what he said, the warning he gave.
Sarah forced herself to focus on his words.
“We’re less than a week away … One tiny explosion means nothing. One on top of another … That is what brings people to their knees.”
They had seen the theory play out in Washington, Chicago, ready now to extend the vision. It was enough to keep her mind occupied, to relieve her of the self-evaluation that moments of solitude and failure all too easily provoked. And yet, as she sat, other images flooded back, an eerily
similar
room: a guard, a bed, though no window. No slits of light seven years ago to grant even the hint of an elsewhere. Only the darkness and the shadows. And always the questions.

“You understood the directive.”

“Yes.”

“You understood it might extend beyond Safad, to the others?”

“Yes
…
I—”

“Yes, you what?”

“Yes, I—”

“It was a contingency, and you made a choice. Certain sacrifices had to be made. In the end, you chose correctly. But it was your choice, your decision. You had to kill them, even if it meant having to let her die.”

“No
…
yes … I—”

“Was there another alternative?”

“There was a delay. I was told to wait. I could have saved her without the delay.”

“It was your choice to make, your responsibility in the end. The delay was i rrelevant.”

“I
…
”

“The delay was irrelevant.”

She stood, a need to shake free from the memories.
I made the choice. I took the responsibility
. A rush of anger, a venom seethed below the surface.
I can’t let you back in!
She needed to find her
own
control, her
own
release. But the images were proving too much, forcing themselves to the surface with an unrelenting abandon. Unable to quell them, she swung her open fist against the face of the plaster wall, the smack of skin on cold flat stone enough to jar her senses. The pain pulsed throughout her hand, drove up through her arm. For a moment, she simply stared at her reddened palm, traced one of its threadlike lines from wrist to thumb, clenched her fist—the pain more acute—and saw the crease vanish into the folds of skin and fingers. Only then did the voice begin to recede.

And with the release, the shadows lifted from the room, her reason more acute, the ten-by-ten space the only reality she permitted. Strangely serene, Sarah drained her mind of everything but escape. They would be back for her soon enough. The operative needed to take control.

She scanned the cell, her eyes stopping at the door—keypad, no handle. Tieg had taken great pains to protect his wine, a precaution that was now paying dividends.
Something to puncture the plastic, get at the wires behind.
Her eyes lit on the group of shelves resting against the far wall; one two-
by-four
, ripped out and with nails still lodged within, might do the trick. She moved toward them, passing under a ceiling vent, the sound of muted voices echoing from above. Stopping, she strained to hear the words. An alternating cadence of accusation and denial indicated several speakers, but there was little else to make out. At least they were still in full lather.

The conversation suddenly broke off as a simultaneous flashing of lights invaded her near-darkened cell, the tiny window vanishing in a flurry of reds and blues. Sarah moved quickly to the stool and stepped up, only to be blinded by the onrush of headlights to her left. An instant later, the sound of footsteps rose from the corridor, a momentary pause before the door flew open, one of George’s comrades bolting into the room, a gun at his side.

“You need to come with me.” Sarah stared at the young face before slowly stepping down from the stool, the man quick to thrust a pair of shoes into her hands. “Put them on.” A reprieve. The
narcotics
would have to wait. Very deliberately, she sat and began to lace up the shoes, an
impatient
gun waving in her face for encouragement. There was concern in his eyes, the butt of his silencer urging with greater insistence as he grasped her upper arm so as to
help
her to her feet. She considered attack, but instinct held her back.
Wait for the options to come to you.
Pushed out into the
corridor
, she came face-to-face with the two best reasons to keep herself in check—another set of well-suited minions, guns in evidence, the smaller of the two nodding for her to move down the hall. Overhead, the sound of scurrying feet followed the quartet along, the activity above in stark contrast to the silent stroll among the caverns. One in front, two at the rear, a pattering of rubber shoes along the carpeted cement leading her away from the steps to the kitchen and toward the back of the house. Within a minute, the narrow corridor brought all four to a large steel door, its thick shell unable to fully muffle the sound of a single voice issuing commands from beyond.