Chapter 57

WHEN I WAKE UP I am shivering. I open my eyes, and although I am not entirely blinded, my vision is blurry at best. I am breathing. Hard. My heart pounds inside my chest, my pulse throbs against my temples. There is a dull pain behind my eyeballs as if someone were somehow pressing their thumbs against them, only from the inside out.

It takes me a moment to realize that the journalist is holding my hand, tightly.

“You were having a terrible nightmare,” she says from where she sits beside me on the couch. “You screamed ‘Get down’ and ‘Go back.’”

Pulling my hand away from hers, I yank off the blanket and sit up, my head aching from the war I just waged inside my brain. My head, ringing like a bell. My brow moist with sweat.

“How long was I out?”

“Thirty minutes,” she reveals. “Perhaps a few minutes more.”

I try and rub the life back into my face with my ice cold palms. Try and rub some sight back into my eyes. Try to rub out the soreness. But the world around me is still blurry and nondescript. I know my sight is returning again. But I have no idea how long the process can take. A few more seconds. Or hours. It’s entirely up to God. Or is it?

“Tell me, Captain,” Betti presses. “What happened in Afghanistan after you bombed the village?”

I turn to her, try to look into her eyes.

“Not now,” I say.

She exhales.

“I understand. But you must tell me when you can. If you can.”

“Why? What does any of it have to do with Grace’s disappearance?”

“It could have nothing to do with her but then, it could have everything. You just have to trust me. My instincts.”

“I promise you, I’ll try. But not now.”

I get up, fumble for my cell phone. I find it, but I still can’t read it.

“Do you know if anyone has called?”

“It’s been silent,” she reveals, her tone apologetic.

“What time is it?”

“A little past noon.”

“Are you busy right now?”

“Do I look it?”

“I’d like you to accompany me to San Marco,” I say. “You will be my seeing-eye dog for a while. Together, we’ll find out one important truth.”

“What truth, Captain?”

“If, Giovanni, the man who has been helping me, is in fact my enemy.”