24

Charlie slept on a pallet at the foot of Gabriella’s bed. He had been in such circumstances many times before. But a woman’s soft breaths had seldom been so alluring.

He woke Gabriella an hour before dawn. They took a room service breakfast and settled the hotel bill in cash. Charlie walked them across Times Square to the Marriott Marquis, where they joined a queue of sleepy tourists waiting for transport to Niagara Falls. Despite the hour, Charlie saw a few elderly couples holding hands and exchanging quiet smiles. As the bus sifted through half-empty Manhattan streets, the morning fog condensed into a misty rain. By the time they reached the northbound interstate, the rain was heavy and the light leaden. Gabriella watched the clogged lanes heading through the tollbooths toward Manhattan and did not speak.

Two hours outside New York, they stopped for coffee. Charlie used the rest stop’s phone to contact a buddy on the NetJets admin staff. After he’d arranged enough of the general’s flights, the guys on commission had started counting Charlie among their closest pals. Once the pleasantries were over, Charlie asked for two deadheads into Europe. Just as he had seen himself do in the final portion of the previous evening’s ascent.

His buddy on the other end of the line replied with the words Charlie had already heard once before. “Hold one.”

Gabriella leaned against the wall next to the phone. “Deadhead?”

Charlie cupped the phone. “When a plane is flying empty, sometimes they let friends or good customers travel free. These passengers aren’t on any register. It’s called deadheading.”

His contact asked, “Who’s that you’re talking to there, buddy?”

“A friend.”

“She nice, this friend?”

“You wouldn’t believe me. You got anything?”

He replied as Charlie knew he would. “We’ve got an empty G-4 outbound today from T-town for a pickup in Milan.”

“Two passengers, no paperwork, no record. The general does not need to know about this one.”

“You dog. Be planeside by fifteen hundred.”

“I owe you.”

“Give me her number and we’re even.”

Charlie met Gabriella’s gaze. “I don’t owe you that much.”

They left the bus at Niagara Falls and walked the Friendship Bridge into Canada. Charlie flagged a taxi and asked to be taken to the Toronto municipal airport. Gabriella remained not merely quiet but removed. Charlie took her silence as a compliment, a sign that she felt no need to offer him anything more than what came naturally.

They had time for a quick lunch at the pilots’ café and were in the air by four. They were joined on board by a silver-haired gentleman who had his work spread across the table before the plane doors were shut. He neither spoke nor looked their way. The plane offered the same luxurious surroundings Charlie had known whenever flying with General Strang, only without the service. The pilots offered the three deadheads a perfunctory greeting and went on with the business of flying.

When they were over a cloudless north Atlantic, Gabriella said, “I have a problem.”

They were seated across from one another at the rear of the jet. The executive worked at the table closest to the cockpit. Charlie rose from his seat, slipped around the table, and slid into the leather chair next to hers. “Fire away.”

“Three problems, actually.”

The airplane’s noise formed a sweet cocoon that invited him to slip into her space. “Okay.”

“One is Brett. He is my partner for ascending. He is becoming, well . . .”

“He’s pressuring you.”

“It is my fault. Six months ago, I discovered Byron with another woman. It was the first time I actually witnessed anything. I told you how I had always suspected, or maybe even known. What really happened that day was I came face-to-face with all the lies I had been telling myself, and how much I wanted to walk away and pretend it had never happened, even then.” She shrugged. “Brett found me weeping. I needed a friend. He was very kind. We met a few times. He took me for lunches, once to the opera. Then I realized he was after being more than just a friend. I tried to tell him that what he wanted was impossible. But he refuses to listen. Sometimes he can be . . . dominating.”

Charlie crossed his arms and pretended to give that serious thought. What he was thinking was, one good punch and the guy would fold like a cardboard cutout.

She must have seen a hint of it in his eyes, because she said, “I don’t want you doing something masculine and stupid. Brett is a noted biochemist. He is responsible for much of our research into the brain’s activities during ascent. His assistance is critical.”

“I’ve set up security for some pretty awful people. I haven’t clipped one yet.” Charlie didn’t see any need to add that there was always a first time.

“I need to find a new partner for my ascents. I have been thinking that if you and I work together, we might establish a greater range.”

“Count me in.”

“Really?” Gabriella actually looked relieved. As though he would ever have turned her down.

“My job is your safety. Seems to me this is a natural fit.”

She relaxed by degrees. “Thank you, Charlie.”

“What’s problem number two?”

“Money. Up until now, Byron paid for everything.”

Charlie knew a moment’s dismay at the prospect that she was actually going to discuss paying him.

But what she said was, “Before we were married, Byron made me sign a contract—I’m sorry, I can’t remember what it was called.”

“A prenup.”

“I am supposed to receive two million dollars. But I can only assume Byron will fight me on that. Yesterday morning before you arrived, I cleared out our joint account. It held just over sixty thousand dollars. Much of that will go to rent the villa in Brunate. But life in Italy is very expensive, especially for a team of scientists who are not used to the cost of living in Europe.”

Charlie warned, “Any contact you make with Byron could tip him off to where we are.”

“I am aware of that. I know he has accounts in Switzerland. I had thought perhaps I could use an ascent to discover where they are and how to access them.” She shook her head. “Something is holding me back. Perhaps I am just being silly.”

“If you are at all concerned about making a move like that, you shouldn’t do it.”

“Do you really think so?”

“You’re operating in uncharted territory. Any good soldier will tell you safety depends on listening to your gut.”

She touched his arm just above the elbow. It was a simple gesture, three fingers resting upon the fabric of his shirt. Yet it contained a sense of quiet intimacy, as though she had moved one step closer to trust. “You are a very wise man.”

He saw no need to break the flow by countering with the truth. “Now the third problem.”

“I don’t know if it is a problem at all. We have been very careful to delineate our ascents. Did I say that correctly, ‘delineate’?”

“Fine by me.”

“Until yesterday, I was the only one able to utilize what I call this forward focus. Now you. We have always been very careful to chart our course before we start each ascent. I like working within these tight confines. It keeps me anchored. Milo and Jorge are the only other two of our team who can regularly ascend. But neither do so easily, and their orientation is not always clear.”

It was only when she began twisting her fingers together that Charlie realized it. “Something is scaring you.”

“Yes, perhaps. When I established these protocols, I had no idea we would succeed in such an amazing manner.”

Charlie moved back a trace. He disliked doing so. But he needed to separate himself enough to focus upon whatever was worrying her.

“Now I wonder if my protocols are actually limiting us, holding us back from seeing a true totality. Keeping us from what we might discover. Blinding us to what we should perhaps have as our goal.” Her eyes held a distant sheen, steel behind dark waters. “Does that make sense, Charlie?”

“I’m not sure.”

She realized what she was doing with her hands and forced them down onto the table. Gripping the burled-walnut edge so tightly her knuckles went white. “I keep having these slight impressions, usually at the end of an ascent. It leaves me unsettled. And very scared.”

Charlie nodded slowly. “I know the answer to that one.”

“Yes?”

“The only time to move into the danger zone is when you’re ready. You scout, you prep, you focus as tightly as you can. And one thing more. You never, ever go alone.”

They landed in Milan Malpensa Airport an hour before dawn. Charlie and Gabriella followed the executive from the plane, pausing long enough to thank the pilots and receive a weary nod in response. They descended the jet’s stairwell into a cold and rain-swept morning. The lone customs officer stamped their passports without ever really waking up from his doze.

They took a taxi to Milan’s central station and bought tickets for the next express train heading north. The train station was as big as a factory and hewed from a granite yellowed by streetlights and rain. The terminal somehow looked larger inside than out. Charlie thought the place could probably swallow Grand Central Station. Gabriella led him to a café filled with other sleepy travelers and fed him a large coffee and a brioche and an orange juice.

The juice was squeezed by hand and the brioche was the best Charlie had ever had. The coffee was from another universe. There was all the coffee he had drunk up to that point, and then there was this. He lingered over it as long as he could and knew he would never forget this moment. A railside café lit with the tepid glow of a forties film noir, rain falling in sheets where the station opened to the dawn, a woman watching his face and finding something there that was worth a smile. Just the two of them, sheltered amidst the company of strangers. As alive as Charlie had ever been.

The trip to Como lasted less than an hour. But the short span of time was deceptive. In fifty-three minutes they left behind the world of plains and cities and highways, and entered the Alpine foothills. Only the rain was the same.

The taxi took them from Como’s central station through a truly ancient city. Just as they entered the traffic crawling around the lake’s shoreline, the morning sun emerged. In a single instant, the world was transformed yet again. Even the taxi driver seemed captivated by the change, for he reached over and turned off his chattering radio, then rolled down his window. The breeze carried an Alpine bite, and Charlie started to ask if Gabriella minded the chill. But when he looked over, he saw a woman who was happy for the first time since she had first entered the Satellite Beach community center. To Charlie, that event seemed like a hundred centuries ago.

Gabriella fumbled around an unfamiliar car door, searching for the window controls, not finding them because she refused to take her eyes off the scene. So Charlie reached across and rolled down the rain-speckled glass.

“Thank you, Charlie.”

“No problem.”

“It is like the best moments of my childhood have come alive again.” She took a deep breath. Then she fumbled again, refusing to turn her face away from the wind and the sun and the lake. She found Charlie’s hand and gripped it with both of hers.

The traffic seemed caught in the same wonder as Gabriella. Charlie could have walked faster. Pedestrians were frozen in a tableau of too-brilliant light. Every face Charlie could see was turned to stare at the sun-dappled water.

The taxi driver caught Charlie’s gaze in the rearview mirror and said something. Gabriella translated, “It has rained for forty-five days straight, the wettest spring in recorded history.”

One moment before, the waters had been as grey as molten lead and the world washed to monochrome dullness. Now everything sang a symphony of color. The lake was a shimmering song of blues and golds. Lakefront gardens were a chorus of every flower and every shade. Homes and buildings glistened. Windows winked a burnished welcome. People smiled. Children laughed and scampered. It was the Italy of dreams and infinite joy. As long as a beautiful woman kept hold of his hand.

The road to Brunate began well enough, but as it rose above the city it narrowed to an asphalt track. This being Italy, the road’s condition did not mean that traffic slowed. In fact, their driver used the hairpin curves as a challenge to his masculinity. Gabriella did not seem the least bit disturbed by how the driver attacked curves and blind corners, so Charlie kept quiet.

He took his mind off the road and the rise and the ledgeless drop by examining the world beyond the treetops. The lake was so vast, its opposite end faded into the mist of another approaching storm. Mountains paraded ahead of the tempest’s leading edge, granite waves capped by icy froth. Farther away, clouds draped trailing veils down from heaven, fragile ribbons of poetry and rain. Charlie counted a dozen rainbows.

When they halted before an ancient gatehouse, Gabriella released his hand and said, “Welcome to my world, Charlie Hazard.”

Irma Steeg approached the taxi and grinned a hello. “If I ever get to where the Italian coffee doesn’t give me enough of a kick, I’ll take up driving these mountain roads.”

Charlie stared out the gatehouse at the lake and the sky and the vista of emerald and blue and gold. “Nice welcome.”

“Take a good look, because it’s not supposed to last. This is the first sunlight we’ve seen since we got here.” She offered Gabriella her hand. “Irma Steeg.”

“I am Gabriella. You are a policewoman and Charlie’s friend.”

“Right on both counts.” She had a cop’s grin, twisting her features in unaccustomed directions.

“Let me get the bags, then you can show me around,” Charlie said.

Gabriella said, “Go, Charlie. I can take care of this.”

“Listen to the lady, Charlie.” Irma snagged his arm. “Welcome to the ten-cent tour.”

“Where is Julio?”

“Sacked out. The kid is doing nights. I’ve got to tell you, he’s been totally stand-up.”

Charlie forced his head clear of jet-lag cobwebs laced with a certain woman’s scent. He did a slow 360 of the surroundings and declared, “This place is superb.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.”

The villa backed up to a granite cliff that rose to a summit three hundred feet overhead. The rock face was certainly scalable, but not without ropes and a harness. Any such assault would be totally visible to a watcher down below. The gardens had been built into a series of elongated steps that tumbled in weed-infested profusion to a tall stone outer wall. The wall was topped by rusty steel bars shaped like spear points. An ancient gatehouse marked the only entry.

The villa’s ground floor was simply an extension of the cliff, built of hand-hewed granite with tall curved windows that were heavily barred. The upper three floors were shaped like a chalet, with blond-wood balconies and heavy oak shutters protecting all windows and doors. The entry portal was fifteen feet high and peaked. The door was blackened by age and studded with iron bars. The ground-floor window frames were a full two feet thick.

Irma declared, “This place could stop an army.”

Charlie figured a team of specialists could affect a full-frontal attack in about ninety seconds if they were willing to make enough noise. The sunlight dimmed a trace, filtered now through the tight squint of a pro laying down lines of fire. He did another 360, working out how he was going to protect seven scientists from attack. With a retired cop and an amateur surfer as his only backup.

Irma noticed the change. “What’s wrong?”

Charlie shook his head. He could almost hear Donovan Field tell him to do his duty with the weapons at hand. “I need a couple of hours’ sack time. Then we should bring everyone together and lay things out.”

He climbed the stairs and entered the villa, seeing everything through the scope of incoming fire. Back in full-alert mode. Doing the only thing he was good at. Taking serious heat.