Three Jack McClure Missions Box Set (78 page)

“Of course they aren’t.” Kharkishvili spread his hands. “What I mean to say is that none of us has complete control over events. I assure you that the perpetrator of these unfortunate atrocities has been punished.”

“Meaning?”

Kharkishvili pointed out the window. “You see that large blue spruce up on the rise there?” He crossed to a glass door that led out to
a flagstone terrace, beyond which appeared to be an apple orchard. He opened it and gestured. “Shall we walk across his unmarked grave together?”

“Your dog could be buried there,” Jack said, “or your ex-wife, or nothing at all.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Where is Mikal Magnussen? I want to ask him some questions.”

At that moment Annika appeared. Catching Jack’s eye, she motioned for him to join her on the other side of the solarium. Jack walked over without excusing himself.

“Harry Martin was an NSA hit man,” she said in a low whisper, “under the control of General Atcheson Brandt.”

“I don’t understand,” Jack said. “Why was he sent after you?”

Her expression of concern deepened. “The NSA must have found out about us. Your president is determined to sign this treaty with the Kremlin.”

Jack shook his head. “Even so, he would never authorize the NSA to do Yukin’s dirty work.”

“I want to take your word for it,” Annika said, “but then what’s the explanation?”

Jack thought a moment. “General Brandt is the joker in this particular deck.”

“What?”

“I have no idea what Brandt is doing handling an NSA assassin, that doesn’t track.”

“Mr. McClure.” Kharkishvili was beckoning. “If you’ll come with me …”

Jack stepped outside and together they walked through the apple orchard to the rise beneath the blue spruce.

“So then?”

Jack rubbed the toe of his shoe over the freshly turned earth, dug deeper. “Nothing is buried here,” he said, “or at least no one.”

Kharkishvili was eyeing him closely. “Are you saying that I lied to you?”

“Without hesitation.”

Kharkishvili stood with his hands clasped behind his back, breathing deeply. “This sense, or ability, is why you’re here now, Mr. McClure.” His eyes met Jack’s. “You see, we need you.”

“I don’t know what ability you’re talking about.”

“We’re inside a puzzle now, Mr. McClure. A Gordian knot, if you will. You have a special gift—a way of seeing around barriers that keep other people paralyzed.”

“I think you have me confused with someone else,” Jack said. “I uncovered your lie, but Annika fooled me.”

Kharkishvili nodded. “But there came a time when you began to have doubts about her, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact there was, when we came out of Rochev’s dacha into the ambush.”

A vague smile played across Kharkishvili’s mouth. “Yes, we anticipated that probability.”

Sixteen diverse bits of information formed a pattern on the Rubik’s Cube in his mind. “Wait a minute, it was Gurov who shot her in the woods. He aimed for the fleshy part of her arm, a minor wound, it’s true, but my doubts vanished when she was hit.”

“You see what I’m driving at, Mr. McClure. It takes so little information for you to grasp the big picture, to determine how vectors intersect. You were the one who found your way here; Annika had no idea where we were, we couldn’t allow that. Compartmentalization is our watchword.” He brought one hand from behind his back, gesturing for them to walk to the cliff face. As they came down off the small rise the wolfhounds appeared, racing each other to Kharkishvili’s side.

“If you have any doubts about how Annika fooled you, I would counsel you to keep in mind that people don’t simply lie, because
lying is never simple. Lying leads to complications—the more one lies the greater the complications. I think that’s clear enough, but for our purposes we must take these thoughts a step further, a mental exercise people rarely bother with because they’re essentially lazy.”

They were nearing the rocky promontory; the mansion rose on their left, a guardian of titanic proportions. The water looked as dark as its name. The dogs were excited either by the height or the sight of the seashore where, perhaps, Kharkishvili or Mikal Magnussen ran them on occasion.

“People lie for a reason, or for a cause, something, at any rate, larger than themselves,” Kharkishvili continued. “The causes—the things that are larger than any individual, larger, even, than a group of like-minded individuals such as AURA. Which is where you come in, because now everything that surrounds AURA seems a threat, at least to us who are on the inside. We have been blinded, made paranoid by our growing peril, so we cannot be trusted. How can we, when we cannot even see past point A to see whether point B will connect with it or destroy it. You have found the land of the blind because you can see for miles. You’re the one with the ability to make sense out of the chaos of life. You see, interpret, understand the disparate elements, you can sense if they connect or not. This is why we need you, Mr. McClure, why no one else will suffice.”

“So this was all a test,” Jack said. “The clues, the bits and pieces, like breadcrumbs in a labyrinth.”

“Oh, nothing we devised was so easy as that, Mr. McClure, but I take your point.” Kharkishvili nodded. “A practical test, yes. Why? Because we had only read about your abilities, and personally I find written reports unreliable. However, an eyewitness account, now that’s an entirely different matter.”

Jack felt the sea breeze against his cheek, saw the wolfhounds chasing their own tails. “You know what? I think you’re all nuts. If you needed me so badly why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Because you wouldn’t have come, and even if you’d had a mind to your president wouldn’t have allowed it.”

“Why?”

“Because our meeting, should it have become a matter of public record, would have jeopardized his precious accord with the shit Yukin. Because as far as the shit Yukin is concerned, as far as his ass-wiper Batchuk is concerned, we’re dead, this group of dissident Russian oligarchs: me, Boronyov, Malenko, Konarev, Glazkov, Andreyev—hunted down and killed by the FSB’s crack assassin, Mondan Limonev. Except that Limonev works for us. All these secrets I lay in your care, Mr. McClure.” He spread his arms wide. “I trust you.”

“You don’t know me. Why would you trust me?”

“Because Annika says I should. Because she trusts you.”

“That’s of no interest to me,” Jack said, though it was impossible to be immune to what Kharkishvili had said. “Edward Carson is my friend as well as my employer. I won’t betray him under any circumstances, so it seems you do have the wrong man, after all.”

Kharkishvili sighed. “Your President Carson is being betrayed even as we stand here. I think you’d better hear the whole story before you make a decision that could have dire consequences not just for AURA but also for the United States.”

“You must hate my guts,” Annika said when she and Alli were alone in the solarium.

“Not really.” Alli was watching Jack and Kharkishvili walking between the martial lines of apple trees. “But I am disappointed.”

Annika produced a rueful laugh. “Yeah, I definitely deserved that.”

“Why did you do it?” Alli asked. “Why did you lie?”

Leaning over, Annika pushed a lock of newly shorn hair off Alli’s forehead. “I had no choice.”

Alli moved away. “Don’t change the subject. That’s what my father and all his friends do when a question is too difficult or embarrassing. It’s a politician’s trick, and I hate it.”

Annika went and sat down in a teak chair, sinking back into the patterned cushions. “I explained to Jack as best I know how.” She gave Alli a rueful smile. “But I know that some actions can’t be explained away, some actions stay with you, like a stigma. I was prepared for that with him, but not with you.”

“Oh, please, don’t bullshit me.” Alli crossed the room, leaned against the glass windows, staring out at the now deserted apple orchard with its sharp, twisted branches seeming to scrape the mottled gray and blue sky.

Annika watched her as she moved, as she crossed her arms over her breasts, as she looked longingly out onto the empty grounds. “The truth is fixed, immutable,” she said, “because if it contains even a grain of a lie, it’s no longer the truth.” By examining the girl’s face she could work out just how much Alli missed Jack when he wasn’t with her, but also a terrible sadness. There was a strong cord between them, no doubt, she thought, but there was also something dark there, a lie of some measure, or perhaps something unspoken, an omission, a truth deliberately unsaid. “But a lie comes in infinite gradations, it can be judged on a scale, whereas truth cannot, you see, because a lie can contain a grain of the truth, or even a great deal of truth and still remain a lie. But of what sort, on what level?

“You can tell a, what, a white lie, I think it’s called in English, isn’t it?” When Alli didn’t answer, didn’t even move from her blank contemplation, she continued undeterred. “You’re not punished for telling a white lie, are you? You needn’t feel remorse or guilt, or wish you could take back your words.”

“Why do you say it as if it’s about me,” Alli said. “It isn’t about me.”

“I was just using a figure of speech,” Annika replied, a deliberate lie. “How would I know if you had lied, or to whom?” She paused,
as if expecting an answer, then went on. “Anyway, a lie can be useful when the truth won’t do, when it’s too sad, for example, or too shocking.” Alli twitched, one shoulder rising involuntarily as she sought to protect herself from the assault of Annika’s words.

“The point is you make a choice when you tell a lie, or even when you withhold the truth—”

“Stop it!” Alli said sharply. Her face, when she turned it toward Annika, was very pale.

“—even in instances when you must tell a lie in order to protect a person you’re close to or love, or in order to serve a higher end. This is what happened to me.”

The two women eyed each other, almost, it seemed to Annika, as if they were gladiators in the Forum, overlooked by the Tarpeian Rock, the ancient burial place of betrayal. She felt energized by this electric charge, by the hope that the ongoing conflict between them would jolt the girl out of her traumatized shell.

“Every lie has its moment when it’s believed,” she said, with her teeth slightly bared, “even by those whose nature it is to doubt, or to be cynical. Lies are seductive in nature because they’re what you want to believe, or contain an element, a seed of the distrust you yourself harbor, though you may not even be aware of it.”

Alli gave a strangled little cry as she peeled herself from the glass. “Is this the way you think you can gain my trust?”

“I never even considered gaining your trust. The man who kidnapped you, who held you hostage, stole your trust, and you’re incapable of getting it back.”

Tears sprang to Alli’s eyes as she tore out the door, stumbling across the flagstone terrace, around the side of the house, blindly following some strange, self-destructive instinct that took her toward the cliff face and the falloff to the churning water below.

23

Dennis Paull awoke in a room full of windows. Early morning light flooded the polished wood floor, by which he knew he wasn’t in a hospital or institutional room. He wasn’t bound, either. He was, however, disoriented. Where was he? What happened? The last thing he remembered … Christ, his head hurt.

“I have something for that headache.”

He turned his head at the sound of a woman’s voice and immediately experienced a tightness where the dart had sunk in. The woman was dressed in a conservatively tailored suit that was too stylish to have been bought on even a G-15 salary.

“Dr. Denise Nyland. I’m a neurologist.” She smiled as she held out two pills in one hand and a glass of water in another. “Here, these will help.” When he hesitated, she added, “They’re just Tylenol, I assure you.”

He took them from her and, when he had checked the logo imprinted
on each tablet, he swallowed them with the entire glass of water.

“I know you must have a lot of questions, Mr. Secretary,” she said. “All of them—and more—will be answered shortly. In the meantime, I suggest you rest while I tell you where you are.” She glanced out one of the windows, where a marble fountain plumed water into the air. Beyond were lawns and carefully sculpted shrubbery, even perhaps a small maze, though from his present angle he couldn’t be certain. He rose from the chair in which he’d been placed and at once felt a wave of dizziness, so that he was obliged to sit right back down.

“You’re in Neverwood, an estate owned by the Alizarin Global Group. I’m employed by the firm.”

Paull fought his way through the vertigo and the pounding in his head to pay strict attention. Alizarin Global was the entity that had paid for General Brandt’s off-the-grid trips to Russia. He’d never gotten around to Googling it, his mind taken up by grief, remorse, self-pity, and rage following the news of Louise’s death.

“Then you must be the one who concocted the chemical that was on the dart.” Paull had trouble enunciating, as if his mouth had been shot up with novocaine.

“Neverwood is in Maryland, precisely ninety miles from the White House,” Doctor Nyland said, pointedly ignoring his remark.

Paull frowned, which caused the pain in his head to eddy up. “Why was I brought here?”

“In a moment, Mr. Secretary, all will be made clear.” That professional smile, clean and icy as a toothpaste ad, held no malice whatsoever. “For the moment let it suffice to say that no one means you any harm. As soon as you are briefed, you’ll be handed the keys to your car. You’ll be free to go without any strings attached.”

“What is Alizarin Global?”

Doctor Nyland merely smiled. “Good-bye, Mr. Secretary. I wish you a pleasant day, wherever your journey leads you.”

And then he was left alone for precisely six minutes. He timed it on his watch, which hadn’t been taken from him. Using his time alone productively he went through his pockets and determined that, apart from his car keys, his possessions were present and accounted for.

At the six-minute mark the door opened and a young, pleasant-faced man entered the room. He was dressed in a dapper business suit, and he smelled vaguely of a cologne nearly as expensive as the clothes he wore. Clipped to the breast pocket of his jacket was a small laminated tag in the shape of a hexagon. It was orange, or perhaps a warm red. It bore no type or name; it must be, Paull intuited, Alizarin Global’s logo.