Lewis’s anger faded with the click of the closing door, as though she’d taken it with her. He turned slowly and surveyed the familiar room. Unlike the modern, functional work areas elsewhere, this room was furnished with dramatic richness. He felt, as always, the power embodied by the decor. Here, important clients met the director and occasionally the section head whose expertise they sought.
Lewis did not meet his clients here. He preferred neutral locations where he could negotiate as a free agent. Here, he confronted only the director, powerful and incisive in the worn black leather chair behind the desk. In this office, he had felt the strength of her will and her intellect, seen her shaken and quickly back in control, heard her laugh, followed her lead. Inevitably Lewis thought of Gerald.
“Gerald,” he said softly, “you should have had it all.”
He felt beaten and exhausted as he left the office, once more past the silent secretary, resolutely past the closed door of the conference room.
A half-hour later, he was changed and jogging on the indoor oval. Anderson had repaired his lung with a steroid patch. Lewis had asked about the safe window of time before removal. Over two years, his lung, with the boost from the patch, should return to normal function and, at regular intervals, Anderson would check for leakage. Lewis had confidence in Anderson but sooner than two years, as soon his lung was pain-free, Lewis intended to have the patch removed. He didn’t want steroids in his system.
His physiotherapist, Rick, joined him on the track. “How goes it?” he asked, moving easily alongside. Rick was young and thoroughly unimpressed with Lewis’s rank or temper.
Lewis grunted. Rick grinned. “So enough, already,” he said.
Lewis made one more slow circuit just to prove it was his decision, then allowed Rick to steer him into the training room and manipulate his shoulder and arm in awkward and painful rotations. He watched the other agents on the Nautilus equipment while Rick worked on him. His interest was not lost on the therapist.
“You’ll be off the machines for a long time, old man,” he said. “Or else you’re going to do yourself so much damage even I won’t be able to fix you. Just stick to the running.”
“Right,” Lewis agreed, his mind on the review. He was sick of the reports, tired of trying to make sense of what had happened and was still happening to him, of Gerald, of the whole mess. As soon as his blood tests were clean, he was going to take those days. No more hospital, no more white coats with their clip boards and their questions, no more blood tests, no more inactivity. Christine had everything under control with the job; he was going south. Maybe tomorrow, he’d see a reason to let Arnold sort out the mess in Arizona.
“Okay,” Rick slapped him on his good shoulder, “You’ll do. Go enjoy your company.”
Lewis looked at him but didn’t ask.
“You know. Marsha. She brought you in and she’s put herself on your medical team.”
“Right,” Lewis said.
Rick grinned and motioned his next victim onto the table. Lewis headed to the elevator. Marsha was between assignments and Tomas had snagged her along with everybody else he could find when he’d put the evac teams together. She’d taken an interest in his recovery after monitoring him on the plane and handing him over to the medical unit in DC. Plus, she was bored, stuck at headquarters while her new project team assembled and prepped for their next project.
Lewis had to admit he didn’t mind the company. She was the only person who didn’t question him. She understood all about the blood tests and the drugs and the sight of his chest didn’t seem to have any effect on her. All in all, a refreshing woman. It didn’t hurt that she was easy on the eyes, with short, sleek blond hair, an upbeat attitude and a classy British accent. She was dressed up today, quite a change from her usual outfits of tunics over leggings.
“The D came by,” Marsha reported. “She left something at the station. I believe she thought I knew where you were and was holding out on her. I hate being at headquarters. Everyone outranks me.”
“Including me, so maybe you should get off my bed.”
“Yes, sir.” She uncrossed her legs dramatically but leaned back and smiled apologetically. “This is the only open spot.” She gestured to the reports on his desk and chair. “I didn’t touch anything. It’s awkward standing around in the hall. I came to ask if you’d like some real dinner for a change. My team’s finally ready. We’re leaving tomorrow. I was thinking maybe the Mirabel on Embassy Row? Accompanied by competent medical supervision, of course.”
“Sounds good.” It sounded way too good. “Check with Rick, see if he’s free.”
“Not a chance. Rick has a very busy schedule. I’ll have to do.” She got up. “Half an hour?”
Lewis showered and dressed, then retrieved the message from the director. For a moment he thought about just leaving it sealed in its envelope until tomorrow. He intended to take her advice and relax. Then he ripped it open, braced for whatever it contained. But it was only one sentence requiring his presence when the review reconvened tomorrow at three. She hadn’t given him much time to consider the offer to bug out on the review.
Marsha had to wait while Supply sent up a loaner gun. He’d had no reason to leave the complex until now so hadn’t replaced the Walther. The new harness was not comfortable but very reassuring. Marsha watched him adjust it without comment. At the front door downstairs, she examined him quietly. “All right, Luv?” she asked. Actually, he was, and really hungry for a change.
The Mirabel was popular with people who wanted to talk privately and at length while they dined. The food was reliably excellent, the service slow, and the lighting dim. It was old, with booths, ancient waiters, and a fourteen-page wine list. It was almost worth a month in the hospital.
Marsha was just back from Kashmir where she’d been for more than a year with a team locating nuclear facilities. Their objective had been to pinpoint sites with elevated radioactivity. One of the most sensitive barometers is fetal tissue; hence, she and Nick had run a maternity clinic in a mountainous region on the Afghan border.
While the rest of the team monitored military movements and infiltrated political parties, Marsha and Nick evaluated aborted fetuses and normally delivered placentas with radioactivity sensors. Because they had provided the only modern obstetrics in a three-hundred-mile area, they had eventually compiled tissue samples from every corner of the grid. Their study, merged with the other intelligence, had pinned down the sites. Lewis wondered who had found that particular information worth the hefty price tag the Group attached to its work.
She was, as he remembered, very bright and she managed to turn the topic into almost charming dinner conversation. Lewis reserved comment and let her run on about her team, their success and her opinion of the job. Any comment from him, however phrased, was bound to be repeated. He did not appreciate speculation about his methods by other section chiefs and refrained from it himself. There were always dozens of ways to approach any situation and it was impossible to justify decisions after the fact. He got enough of that sitting boards.
Right now, he just wanted to enjoy the food and watch a pretty girl drink wine with the light gleaming off her hair.
Marsha ordered lamb in a currant sauce. When the waiter left, she confided that she wouldn’t be fully recovered until she’d eaten lamb she hadn’t seen slaughtered. Lewis empathized. Although he frequently worked jobs in undeveloped countries, his specialty was geared for commercial centers. Not so the medical techs whose expertise provided perfect cover in the most remote, backward, hard-scrabble sites.
Marsha shook her head sagely. “The food wasn’t the worst part, or the dust, or even the weather. The worst part was Nick.”
Lewis filed that away. Everybody who worked for him got along, or they were off the team.
“I can get along with anybody,” she mused, as though reading his mind. “Even Nick. But I’ll pass on any job that requires me to work alone with him again. Don’t get me wrong, Nick’s really good technically. I learned a lot from him. He’s just grouchy, a pain in the ass to be around all the time.”
Lewis had the same opinion. He half remembered Nick asking if he wanted a rabies shot during the flight home.
Lewis drove when they left the Mirabel. It was early and there was plenty of traffic as he pulled out of the parking lot. “So other than Nick, how was it?” he asked.
She looked at him thoughtfully, “I came away from there so grateful I was born in the UK. Those poor women, Lewis, I’d like to put them on a plane and just take them away from their lives.”
He had a pretty good idea where she was going, but humored her by saying “Oh?”
“Ugh.” She made a face, “You wouldn’t believe the things they do to them.”
“Who?”
“The whole culture. There were a couple of very young girls, maybe twelve or thirteen, already having babies. They were absolutely nuts about Nick. They followed him around whenever they had a chance. They told me he was the kindest man they’d ever met. Nick, for pity’s sake. But they were right. Nick’s a good medic. Childbirth at that age can do terrible things. It’s criminal that men can’t wait.”
“So the women are all victims? What about the men? No secret yearnings for the noble primitive?”
“Not without an armed bodyguard under my bed. And even then, I’d find it pretty hard to enjoy a man who considers it his right to have my tongue cut out if he doesn’t like something I say.”
“A woman told me once that all men are the same.”
“Yeah, my father told me that about racehorses,” Marsha rejoined easily. “I love a day at the races. On any day, over any course, there’s always the one that surprises you.” She turned to him, her serious mood lifting. “I’m staying at the apartments on Cathedral. How about a brandy?”
Lewis had a rule about Group women — not an ironclad rule exactly but a definite reluctance for women on the job, although he liked the women fine. They were a type: attractive, direct, and proficient — in bed and out — but he didn’t have time for the inevitable complications. On the other hand, Marsha was already committed to a new job, and after that, it would be a long time before fate put her on the roster again when he was hiring.
“I don’t require anything elaborate,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. “Just a plain No will do if you’re not interested.”
“Interested,” he said, “but tired and old.”
“Not that old.” She returned his smile.
“No,” he admitted, admiring her hair and the curve of her lips Not that old, though a long ten years older than Marsha. And not that tired. He made a right on Cathedral.
She asked him about his chest while she rinsed the glasses. He was brief. It was healing fast; the drains were out, the incisions closed. She seemed professionally interested. Despite his weariness with the topic, they discussed it. He’d arrived on the medical floor at HQ unconscious from Demerol administered on the jet, the painkiller adding another dimension to his blood tests. It had taken hours to identify the bizarre and potentially fatal combination of drugs. X-rays quickly revealed the source: a brass and steel dart that had skimmed the left side of his chest to bury itself laterally in the right, stalled by wedging itself between his ribs, with the tip dripping poison into his right lung. What the X-rays couldn’t tell them was whether the dart had discharged its full load or how twitchy the plunger might be when they went in to remove it.
Ultimately, Dr. Anderson had decided expediency was paramount and scooped it out along with a chunk of muscle and lung tissue. They’d recovered the device undisturbed, applied a steroidal patch to the lung damage and left him with significant external damage to his chest.
“I’m only going to say this once,” Marsha told him earnestly, handing him a glass with an inch of amber. “I know you haven’t asked my opinion, but I wouldn’t let them put those steroids in me. That stuff is poison. They can still remove it as long as you don’t wait too long.”
“It’s doing its job.”
“But the steroids will cause the tissue to keep regenerating even after it’s completely closed up the injury. You’ll lose lung function eventually from a big knot of tissue over the site.”
“They tell me it’ll take a couple of months for my ribs to grow back. Anderson will keep an eye on things. I appreciate your thoughts, Marsha, but if the biggest problem I have five years from now is a knot on my lung, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
Despite his quiet tone, his voice had the hard edge of finality.
“So you do recognize the possibility of surprises being pleasant,” she said lightly and flipped off the kitchen light. She sipped her brandy and joined him on the couch. “You know, I used to think about you a lot when we were on that job in London.”
“I must not have kept you busy enough. You were supposed to be thinking about the job.”
“Oh, I was,” she protested, laughing, “twenty-three and a half hours a day. Did you ever think about me?”
“Did we finish the job?”
“Yes, of course. Don’t you always?”
“On time?”
“Ahead of schedule.”
“Did it go well? Was it clean? Did we miss anything? In your opinion, was there something we could have done better?”
“It was perfect, okay?” She tilted her head back and slanted a smile at him.
“Does that tell you what I was thinking about?”
“Don’t you ever think about anything but work?”
“I’m trying to think about something else right now.”
“Like what?”
“Like what you were thinking about for that missing half-hour every day in London?”
“I can’t tell you, I’ll have to show you.”
“Yeah? Well, remember I’m under medical supervision.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. You’ll be supervised.” Marsha set down her drink. “But first, let’s get rid of this.” She deftly loosened the knot in his tie. “I don’t want anything to interfere with your breathing.” She leaned closer. “Except me.” She kissed him gently, a soft brush of her lips across his mouth, then with more pressure, moving along his jaw with her lips and teeth.
He welcomed her touch, enjoying her teasing exploration and the warm breaths she blew across his ears and along his neck. Afterward, he knew he’d have to suppress the nagging knowledge that the encounter was a trophy of sorts for Marsha. For now, he silenced his conscience with a deliberately paced response. With his hands lying relaxed along the back and arm of the couch, he savored the buildup, needing the release she offered but enjoying the delay, freeing her with his restraint. If he were any judge, she was a virtual train wreck of sexual energy. Getting wrecked seemed like a very good idea, and all it was going to take was giving her a head start.
“Why are your eyes always so cold, luv?” she murmured, her lips behind his ear. “When you’re angry, they’re positively deadly.” She brushed a warm sigh across his other ear. “I’ve always wondered what would warm them up.”
“I could have sworn,” he said lazily, “there wasn’t a cold spot anywhere in this room.” Her hands collected his and arranged them where she wanted them. He responded appropriately, pulling her closer so he could capture an ear lobe between his teeth. When she groaned, he murmured, “Tell me, then show me.”
He was amused by the things she wanted to tell him. Hearing them in her accent was like being propositioned by the BBC. His fingertips traced circles on her blouse, reminding him of something. What? Oh yeah, Suzanna’s silk robe wrapped around his fingers. His hand gathered the soft fabric in experimental repetition.
“Don’t stop,” Marsha protested. That was wrong. She’d said, “Stop! Just stop.” What the hell had he been doing? Oh Christ, her again.
He closed his eyes and felt a sure hand on his thigh. Yes, definitely Marsha, and she doesn’t want to stop — nobody wants to stop.
“Let’s move the party,” he said against her temple, shifting her shoulder away from the tender side of his chest. He captured her hands and stood, pulling her up with him. On the way to the bedroom, he unbuckled the harness and placed the gun on the floor at the head of the bed. Then he kissed her hungrily, holding her hands behind her back and exploring her at his own pace.
In a few seconds she worked her hands free and slid them up his back. She leaned back as his mouth left hers and found the opposite ear and then the sweetness of her neck.
Her hands moved around to his chest, “Tell me if I hurt you,” she whispered, working on the buttons.
When he felt the tease of her nails on his bare chest, he spanned her waist and pressed her down onto the bed, “Lately, everybody who touches me hurts me,” he growled into her ear. “How would you be different?”
But somehow, she did manage to be different. Demanding and yielding all at once and full of delicious ideas to whisper into his ears and against his mouth without the slightest concern for his age or condition, and best of all, extremely imaginative when it came to sparing his shoulder.
* * * *
“Stay,” she said sleepily when he rolled out of bed and started to dress.
“Things to do.” He’d already lain awake an hour, savoring the soft warmth of her curves against his side. His chest throbbed despite the languor in the rest of his body. He rarely slept with company and tonight promised no exception; sleep was far off and moving.
“I’ll check your car in,” he said from the bedroom door. “Good luck in Hong Kong.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Same to you. And Lewis — I’m sorry you’re not bullet proof. I always thought you were.”
“Right,” he said. He was still smiling faintly as he locked the door and headed for the stairs.
* * * *
It was just after midnight when Lewis pulled the Toyota up to the security gate at headquarters. The guard checked his ID before waving him through. He appreciated the attention. He had become very security conscious though he knew it would pass. The single guard controlling the entry to the underground parking provided routine screening. Serious security began at the elevator.
He pressed his right index fingerprint to the smoked-glass sensor embedded in a brass plate where the elevator call panel should have been. The doors opened instantly. The identical brass plate inside the elevator required his left thumb print on the reader.
The brass plates guarded each entrance. All were engraved B.E.I.G.E., the Group’s obscure public trademark. Any employee could call the elevator or open the front doors, but access was restricted, floor by floor, based on clearance. He smiled at the plate, suddenly, reminded of the fable of Gerald’s test of the system. It was classic Gerald.
A security alarm was triggered from any reader by applying the appropriate digit from the opposite hand. From inside the elevator, a right thumb print closed and locked the doors, froze the elevator controls and lit up the screens in the guard room while flashing an alert to every terminal in the building. The building was sealed, all exterior doors electronically bolted. It also activated surveillance inside the elevator. It was a simple, undetectable action that effectively prevented forced entry by means of a gun in the back of an unwary employee.
Gerald had decided they needed a drill, so he’d arranged one with Security when the director was away. The chief of Security had advised Jamieson four minutes before Gerald pressed his right thumbprint onto the plate.
Depending on the version of the story, it had taken security between two and four hours to restore normal building operations. During that time, Gerald had been locked in the elevator with an Asian linguist, an aloof, China-doll type, previously impervious to Gerald’s charm. Whatever the elevator microphones and cameras had broadcast to the security staff had caused waves of hilarity behind their closed office door, where they were supposedly following procedures to step down the security crisis.
Jamieson had been agitated, Gerald highly amused, and the director, on her return, less so. Future drills were scheduled in advance, handled exclusively by the Security Section and required approximately eleven minutes.
Lewis felt his smile fade. There would never be another Gerald.
He was wide-awake and restless, and if he went to bed, he knew he would lie there and think about that. He didn’t want to think about Gerald any more. Or Arizona, or MacIntyre, or that goddamn woman. The perfect solution presented itself in the elevator. He punched the button for the sixth floor, the medical staff residence. He had a hunch.
He was right. Rick was assigned to one of the rooms on the floor. In a minute he was right again. Rick was in his room, in bed, asleep. Lewis was smiling as he crossed the room noiselessly and clamped his left hand over Rick’s windpipe. “Oomph,” said Rick and jerked violently.
“Hi kid,” Lewis replied conversationally, and sat down on the edge of his bed. “Feel like company?” He lifted his hand.
“Fuck Lewis. What’re you trying to do? Kill me? What time is it?”
“Middle of the night, Kid. Time for me and you to get some things straightened out.”
Rick lay back and rubbed a hand over his throat. “What the hell are you talking about? For Christ’s sake, go to bed. Whatever it is, it’ll keep ‘til morning.”
“No time like the present, kid. I’ve been reading your file. You need some help with your shooting. You haven’t qualified. Now you and I are going to go downstairs to the range,” he levered Rick up into a sitting position. “And we’re going to qualify. I’m going to give you a break, I’m going to shoot left-handed. But we’re both going to do it. Whoever qualifies first can name the place. Loser buys breakfast.”
“I don’t have to qualify ‘til June and what’re you doing reading my file, anyway?”
“I can read your file any time I want but more important, I can write in it. I can write your ticket. How would you like to do a year in Yemen? No beer, no women, very damn little fun.”
Rick had recovered his spirit. “Those are universal commodities, if you know where to look.” He yawned, then added hastily, “Not that I’m interested in proving it.”
“Get dressed and get your weapon. Meet me downstairs in ten minutes.”
The range was empty. Lewis broke out the ammunition for both of them after checking Rick’s weapon, a Bersa undercover. He was shooting thirty-eight caliber also with a standard issue Beretta 84.
The Beretta felt alien after the familiar heft of the Walther. It also had a manual safety and a smaller magazine, a pair of deadly differences. He shot magazine after magazine, imprinting the actions: flip the safety off, fire twelve, drop the empty clip, another twelve. Ok but not great. Trying a full magazine right- handed was short-lived, his chest wasn’t ready for that.
He left Rick to work out his own bugs for a half hour then stepped around the partition to watch him.
It was not immediately apparent what Rick was doing wrong. The Bersa seemed a reasonable fit for Rick’s small hand and he’d been coached in the correct grip and stance. But his aim was bad. Lewis watched him for a few minutes before he noticed that Rick clenched his eyes into slits before each shot.
“What are you thinking, right now?” He clamped a hand on Rick’s shoulder.
Rick lowered the pistol. “I don’t know, what should I be thinking?”
“Don’t worry about should or shouldn’t, just go ahead and shoot and tell me what you’re thinking as you do it.”
Rick raised the gun, his eyelids twitched, he lowered it. “Shit, every time I do this, all I see is stuff like your chest. Way too often I see holes like that in people. You’re wasting your time with me, Lewis. I’m not like you, I don’t want to do that to anybody.”
“All right,” Lewis answered calmly. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Come on over here.”
Rick followed him, puzzled but obedient, past the partitions to the last box in the row. Lewis activated the mode selector, which lowered the familiar silhouette target. He changed the template to a bull’s-eye.
Lewis reloaded clips while he talked. “Were you here three years ago? No? Well, they brought me in with a broken arm and a couple of ribs. I got hit by a van. I had somebody like you covering my back, he couldn’t stop the van. You can’t stop most vehicles with a thirty-eight unless you can hit them just right. Now, look at that target and see a van that’s going to hit me. If it hits me, I’m going to be your patient and I’m going to be one snarly asshole. So it would be in your best interests to stop it.”
Rick shot three magazines, then Lewis shot one to give the kid a break and take the pressure off. Rick placed his next series all inside the expert range.
“Man,” he said with a grin, “I never did that before.”
“Progress,” Lewis said. “That’s a nice little weapon. What made you choose it?”
“Oh, Beth had her team over on the assault range doing double-tap drills last year. I was watching them from the cat walk and Beth was using one of these. I asked her about it and she let me try hers. Then I ordered one.”
“Didn’t bother you to watch Beth’s team drilling, huh?”
“No, there’s something about Beth. She’s so good you just kind of forget what she’s about.”
“Yep, she’s something. If you’re hoping to get a field assignment with her or anybody else, you’re going to have to get past your problem down here. Don’t worry about patching them up; you’ll feel different when they’re shooting back. Does Anderson know you want to jump teams?”
“No, not yet. And he’ll kick my ass all over his office if he finds out I was down here with you shooting in the middle of the night. He thinks you should still be in bed, doped up.”
Lewis’s ears were ringing despite the heavy protection they’d worn. His head ached. He felt drained, tired enough to sleep now. He dropped a hand on Rick’s shoulder as they headed for the door, “Rain check on breakfast but I’ll take you up on the dope. Give me something that won’t kill me if it tangles with some wine and a few ounces of brandy.”
“And a little essence of Marsha?”
Lewis’s jaw tensed with annoyance. As Rick’s weight shifted with his next stride, Lewis put a hand on his shoulder to push him face first into the closest padded partition. Rick’s forehead and nose made abrupt contact with the fabric. “If you’re interested in Marsha, kid,” Lewis said quietly, “take it up with her.” He lifted his hand.
“Damn!” Rick touched his nose tenderly. “Okay. Will Darvon do?”