Critical Space ak-5 Page 22

  "I'm not about to argue the necessity of Hitter's death, or Stalin's. We had this conversation the first time we met. What I do and what you do are very different."

  She stared at me for a moment longer, then moved away from the counter, back to the sink. I'd seen nothing in her eyes. She hung the dish towel on the hook.

  "Has it not occurred to you that I didn't kill anyone when I took Lady Ainsley-Hunter from you?" she asked. "That I did not kill you, or Natalie Trent, or Corry Herrera? That I did not kill Bridgett Logan or Dale Matsui or Robert Moore?"

  "It has occurred to me. And I think the only reason you didn't is because you want something from me, and you know that if you'd killed any of them, I'd make it my mission in life to…" and I shut up, because I realized what it was I was about to say.

  She didn't press it, just opened the refrigerator and, after viewing the contents, asked me if I wanted fish for lunch.

  ***

  We ate on the patio, grilled yellowtail with thick slices of pineapple. It was the kind of lunch I'd have chased with a beer if she'd had any, but there was no alcohol in the house, so we both drank water. The Walther stayed by my plate, but I was getting tired of lugging it around, which I supposed was one of the things she'd thought would happen.

  She'd put music on her little stereo before taking her seat, and I could hear the Beatles singing softly inside. The album was Rubber Soul.

  "I couldn't simply approach you in New York and ask to hire you," Alena said. "You understand why I had to do it this way."

  "I would have run screaming," I admitted.

  "Yes."

  I put my utensils down and looked at the bare bones on my plate. "Why me? You've certainly encountered other PSAs."

  "None that I respect." She drank some water, gauging my reaction. From what she saw, she felt the need to clarify. "You beat me. No one has ever done that before."

  "I didn't beat you."

  "My job was to kill Pugh. I failed."

  "I was lucky and I was working with people who were outstanding at their jobs," I said. "What you're asking me to do, you're asking me to do alone. You, of all people, should know what that means."

  "You're forgetting that I will be your principal. Pugh could not fire a gun, Lady Ainsley-Hunter could not rig an explosive. Pugh was an old man, diabetic and possibly alcoholic. Ainsley-Hunter is an activist, a public figure and a zealot. I am a thirty-one-year-old woman in excellent physical condition, mentally acute and – despite what you would care to believe – emotionally stable."

  I hated the fact that I was actually considering what she was saying. I hated it even more that, once again, she knew what I was thinking.

  "There is more," she said. "No one you have ever protected before can teach you what I can teach you, Atticus. I can teach you everything Oxford knows, because I know it, too."

  "You're offering to turn me into an assassin?"

  "I'm offering to show you how we work, how we think. How we see the world. How we see ourselves." She looked at me across the table. "There's something else. You need to do this."

  I didn't quite laugh, but it came close to an outright snort. If I'd had water in my mouth, she'd have gotten an impromptu shower.

  "You are losing yourself," Alena said softly. "Fame does not suit you. It is distracting to you, and perhaps even offensive. The money is nice, it allows you comforts, allows you to provide for Erika and even Logan…"

  "Logan makes a fine living without my help."

  She blinked at me, waiting to see if I was finished, then continued. "It allows you to provide for Erika, but that is not enough for you. It has allowed you to meet those people who, culturally, you have been told it is desirable to know, women like Skye Van Brandt. But your association with people like Van Brandt has not made you happy. It has, in fact, made you weak."

  "Hold on…"

  "Last year would what I did in the elevator a week ago have worked? Last year, given the same situation, would you have debussed your principal to a publicly known location after an attempt had been made?"

  "The 'attempt' was a man playing with himself."

  "That should not have mattered in the slightest," she said, annoyed with me.

  I drank water and didn't say anything.

  "The man who beat me a year ago never would have made that mistake."

  I set the glass down empty. It wasn't actually made of glass, but instead a clear molded plastic, light blue. Hers was from the same set, but pale green. "Then why would you want to hire that man?"

  "You are also the man who put himself between an Accuracy International AWM and Ainsley-Hunter, and then demanded to see his principal safely to the car. You are the man who bid his principal goodbye, and then came to meet me, believing that his life was a fair trade for hers. You are the man I want to protect me."

  "Her life was worth saving."

  Now it was her turn to drink water and not respond.

  I shook my head and looked off the patio. The breeze was moving palm fronds and branches, as if they were waving me either to come closer, or to make a discreet exit. It was getting warmer as the day progressed, but in the shade of the patio, surrounded by the concrete and tile, it remained comfortable.

  "You killed three men in Dallas, Texas, ten days ago," I said. "Video surveillance caught you leaving the scene."

  "No I didn't." She said it with conviction and almost surprise.

  "There were pictures, Alena. Three men – Ortez, Montrose, and a third whose name I don't remember. All had been shot. There was a picture of you leaving, driving a car out the gate."

  "It was not me. The photograph was a fake."

  "Sure."

  "I have not been to Dallas in over three years. Who showed you these pictures?"

  "It's not important."

  "I did not do it."

  I looked at the trees some more, felt her looking at me. I said, "Tell me about Oxford."

  "He is like me."

  "Another Russian?"

  "No, American, I think. Maybe British. I'm not certain who trained him, but he is from the West. What little I know about him suggests a military and intelligence background."

  "I heard he specializes."

  "Scandal," she confirmed. "He uses sex, it is the way he stages his bodies. But it means nothing, it is simply a kind of job, one that takes its own special planning, the way a bombing or a poisoning takes special planning. He knows what I know."

  I had to wonder about that. It could be as simple and straightforward as she made it sound, staging bodies the way other people move their furniture. But I doubted it. Someone who kept returning to the sex angle was probably someone who liked playing with naked bodies. Maybe Drama wasn't a monster, but I wasn't willing to extend the same faith to Oxford.

  "Is there a history between you two?" I asked.

  "No."

  "And you're sure he's coming after you? You've confirmed that?"

  "Yes. I have sources."

  "Sources like Dan?"

  "My sources say Oxford is looking for me. I take that kind of threat seriously, so I checked."

  "But you don't know who bought the hit?"

  "No."

  "And you're sure it has been bought, that he's not doing this on his own?"

  "Oxford would not undertake such an operation for free. Pro bono, as you say. To kill me, he would demand a substantial payment."

  "How much?"

  "Four million dollars, at least. More, perhaps."

  "How long has he had the contract? Or whatever it is you folks call it."

  "Job. I call it a job. Just as you call it."

  I was silent.

  She took a green orange from the bowl at the center of the table and began peeling the skin. The bowl was white porcelain, with two thin, sky blue stripes running around its center. "He has had the job only a month or two."

  "If he was in New York looking for you, he knew you were in the U.S. That means he's close."

  "New York
is a clearinghouse." She was removing the skin from the orange as a single piece, using only her fingers, trying to keep it from tearing. "It is the place to acquire everything, from equipment to people. Everyone goes through there. New York means nothing."

  "Does he know about this place?"

  She hesitated.

  "Does he?"

  "He knows about the connection between you and me, about Pugh. I'm certain he's read Havel's book." She looked up from her work with the orange. "It will take him some time, but he will find me here."

  "How much time?"

  She finished removing the skin, coiling it on her empty plate. She offered me a wedge of the orange, and when I shook my head, ate it herself, her eyes wandering to the water. She was quiet long enough for "Girl" to end, and John and Paul's harmony on "I'm Looking Through You" to begin, and it was clear she was thinking about it, considering how she would search if the positions were reversed.

  "At least three months," she said, finally. "Possibly four. Maybe longer. I do not think any less – he would have to have extraordinary luck. It will cost him a lot of money. He will start by establishing what occurred between you and me and Ainsley-Hunter, then attempt to recreate your route. He will try to track the equipment I used. The rifle would be the weakest link, and with time, it would lead him to Brighton Beach. There he will learn about the Scarab, and he will know we took the boat. He will calculate the range of the vessel, and then he will begin a methodical search of all those places where we made landfall, where we refueled. He will lose us for a while once he reaches the Caribbean. He will have to move from island to island, carefully, because he will believe he is close, and he will not want to show himself. It will take him at least six weeks before he narrows his search to the Lesser Grenadines. He will lose us again at Kingstown, realizing that was where we left the Scarab. It will take him at least another week before he reaches Bequia.

  "But once he reaches Bequia, it will not take him long at all. The island and the population are both small, and it will take him less than a day to locate this house, to verify that I am here. Then he will withdraw and plan.

  "And then he will kill me."

  "And me."

  "Yes." She ate another wedge of the orange, holding it on the pads of her fingers. "He will be surprised you are here, because he believes you are dead, that I killed you, and that your body is rotting at the bottom of the Hudson River. He cannot conceive that I spared you. He will not expect you here."

  "But he'll spot me during the surveillance," I said.

  She finished the orange, dropping her right hand and allowing Miata to lick the juice from her fingers. "There is an optometrist in Port Elizabeth, we will get you contact lenses. You will cut your hair and dye it. You will grow a beard. With the sun, the tan, it will make recognition difficult."

  "You're getting ahead of yourself," I said. "I didn't say I was staying."

  This silence lasted long enough for Rubber Soul to end.

  "You should leave here," I told her. "Keep moving."

  "Movement is exposure."

  "So you're just going to wait until Oxford shows up? And then kill him?"

  "If you can think of another way to stop him, I'd be quite interested in hearing it."

  I ignored that. "Do you have any idea how he'll come at you?"

  Again, she gave it some thought before answering. "He will want to verify the kill with his own eyes. Pistol, probably. It will be close work, inside the critical space."

  That was both surprising and distressing. Jeppeson's attempt on Lady Ainsley-Hunter had been inside the critical space, and I'd gotten her out of that with dumb luck and nothing else. I doubted there would be anything dumb about Oxford's try when it came. Survival would hinge on reaction times, how quickly I could spot the threat and respond, how quickly Drama could do the same.

  "He can get that close?"

  "I can," she said simply.

  You're thinking about this, I realized. You're considering it seriously. You're out of your miserable little mind.

  She was petting Miata's neck, waiting for me, as if she could see me teetering on the brink.

  "Most principals, they hire a BG because the BG knows something they don't, namely how to keep them alive," I finally said. "They're buying that knowledge far more than they're buying the body. They normally get their money's worth. But this is different, this is a whole different level of play. This isn't lunatic-in-the-crowd stuff, this isn't some overzealous fan. This is a professional killer. That's your territory. You have knowledge I don't."

  "Some of the knowledge, yes."

  "Which makes me think that I'd be cannon fodder for you, nothing more."

  "I have already said that I will teach you what I know. I will teach you everything."

  I took off my glasses. The left lens had taken a hairline scratch at some point, probably before I'd left New York. I hadn't noticed it. I put my glasses back on.

  "If you stay," she said, "I will have no secrets from you."

  She waited for me to respond for nearly a minute, and when it was clear to her that I wasn't going to answer, she cleared the table and went inside. I heard the faucet in the sink open, the water splashing. Miata moved from where he had parked by her chair to me, resting his muzzle on my lap. I decided that scratching him on the head would not be wholesale collaboration with the enemy.

  If I believe her, I thought. If I can believe her. And I know I can't, so why am I even thinking about this?

  The photographs that Gracey and Bowles had shown me, they could have been faked, it was true. Why they would fake them, why they would go to the time and the effort to put a scare into me, I couldn't begin to imagine. It had been in that same meeting that Oxford had been mentioned, that I had seen a picture that connected him to Drama. That meeting had put the players on the table, linked them all together.

  There just wasn't any logic to it that I could see other than a means to set me up. So maybe the Backroom Boys were in on it with Drama; she'd already admitted to having worked for the CIA, or at least she had if I was willing, once again, to believe her. It was like following a loop of lies, a Mobius strip that, no matter where I began to follow it, fell back on itself. I couldn't even see a fundamental truth anymore, a place to start. I was being played, sure; by whom, why, I no longer had any idea.

  Then there was the other thing, the chance, however remote, that she was telling me the truth. That Oxford had been hired to kill her, that the CIA had misread their intelligence, had overreacted to the presence of two of The Ten arriving in the United States at the same time. If that held, then Drama was lying about Dallas, but that could be explained.

  It was, in fact, harder to do what she had done to me in New York without killing people than the other way around. If the deal in Dallas had gone sour, if she'd had to defend herself, then it made sense she would lie to me, deny having been there at all, for fear of pushing me away.

  Of course, I didn't actually know if Drama was telling the truth, if my friends were still alive.

  Too many variables, too many things I didn't know.

  She emerged from the house, carrying a beach towel and no longer wearing the shorts, now just in the one-piece bathing suit.

  "I must exercise," she said without looking at me, and headed down the path back to the beach. Miata left me and followed her.

  I stayed at the table.

  ***

  There was only one door that I couldn't open, in the basement. Shielded wiring ran along the basement ceiling, into the room. Throughout the house I found signs of an alarm system, though I couldn't locate the controls. Motion detectors had been discreetly placed in the foyer, the living room, and the kitchen. Another was at the head of the stairs, and on the second floor, after some looking, I found sensors at both ends of the hall, and the bedrooms. The only room that wasn't covered was the master bathroom.

  I didn't find any video surveillance equipment, no cameras or the like, but I didn't take a lot
of time to look, so I could have easily missed them.

  There was no telephone that I could find, and no television. The only household electronic was an Aiwa compact stereo system with multidisc CD player, sitting on a shelf in the living room with a stack of discs beside it. She seemed to be a big fan of the Fab Four, had a copy of everything they'd ever released, as well as orchestral recordings of their songs, pure instrumental versions. There was a scattering of classical music.

  The house was Spartan. A framed poster for the Easter Regatta hung beside an ugly oil painting of a milkmaid working a cow. The only bookcases I found were in the living room, filled with tired paperbacks, their spines creased and broken, most of them at least ten years old. There were several spy stories, and a lot of true-crime books. Most were in English or French, but there were a handful written in German.

  In the kitchen, in a cupboard by the sink, she kept cookbooks. The majority of these were in French, lessons in the preparation of fine foods, and none looked to have ever been opened. The rest were in English, titles that talked of maximizing your potential through food, the power of fresh fruits, healthy vegetarian cooking, performance diets.

  Aside from the knives in the kitchen, the only weapon I found was upstairs in the master bathroom, a Korth.357 Combat Magnum, resting on a box of tampons in a drawer by the sink. I'd never actually seen a Korth before. It is a six-thousand-dollar gun, handmade and superbly tooled.

  If you're going to be attacked in the John, I thought, you might as well defend yourself with the best.

  I dropped the Korth back on the tampon box and headed back outside.

  ***

  The sun had dried most of the water from her skin and swimsuit. She sat on the towel, tossing a piece of driftwood for Miata to fetch. The Doberman seemed ecstatic with the game, running back and forth with his mouth open and his tongue flapping, and if he'd had his voice, I'm sure he'd have been barking in delight.

  "I want to use a phone," I said.

  She didn't look at me. "I can't allow that."