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Is it all finally over?
Hannah handed Rennie the satellite phone and sat on
the bed, exhausted. For so long, time had crept along without
meaning. Suddenly the world seemed to be spinning wildly on
its axis. Hannah looked at Garrison lying on the floor. He was
awake now. They stared at one another for a long moment before
Hannah turned and lay on the rumpled bed. She heard Rennie s
voice and the voice of the other agent but she couldn t take it
in. Was her future being determined? Once again beyond her
control?
She thought about the Baltimore apartment building where
she and her parents had lived. There had been one Gentile family
on their floor. They had a dog, that s what she remembered
most, and a little girl her age who she played with one summer
and never saw again. The dog, who always had a lint-covered
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joint from the butcher, would approach its bone warily, unsure
what to do with it. The poor animal seemed torn between two
natures. Was he a creature of the wild? Or one whose instincts
had been transformed into something wholly unnatural? Hannah
never quite trusted the animal, never having been around dogs,
unaware of their ability to adapt their nature, like people, to the
ever changing world. Hannah, too, had adapted her nature, but
in the opposite direction and now she had to fight her way back.
Living in D.C., she regularly went to the National Gallery. On
the lower level was a room, not particularly large, with a famous
Pollock. There, too, was a Rothko, vast and deep, and this was
what she came to see. A field of orange and yellow ceding to an
ambiguous black border. Standing before it she d often heard the
remark, Well, anybody could do that. In those moments, Hannah,
who was a cynic, felt for all of mankind, for those who could see
the Rothko and want to drown in it and for those who couldn t.
Closing her eyes, she thought of the orange and the yellow,
its vibrancy and fecundity, and of the monochrome fields of black
and gray that Rothko produced before his suicide. How long had
she lived with the black and the gray, keeping that glorious burst
of color her heart s secret?
When she returned to life, she would bring in the orange
and the yellow and maybe even red. Yes, red. She would place a
beautifully cut red sofa in the midst of her monochrome world.
As a reminder of what she had learned and must never forget.
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CHAPTER TWENTY
Martin Garrison had lived his life walking the precarious
line of simultaneously adhering to the rule of law and flouting
it at every turn. At home, he d done what was expected of
him attended meetings on time, applied the social graces
appropriately and climbed the Agency ladder, skipping a rung
here or there but never climbing over anyone. But when he was
on assignment, on foreign soil, and tasked with undermining the
existing power structure, all bets were off. There was only one
priority, one rule allegiance to your own country. Aside from
that one restriction, he was a free man, with leave to maim and
kill, lie like a sociopath and illegally obtain whatever he required
for his mission. Many agents crossed the line, drunk on a kind
of autonomy most people who were fortunate enough to live in
civilized society never had a chance to taste. Garrison had crossed
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the line before, but never so far that he couldn t cross back. Until
now. He had betrayed his country in an attempt to repair the
nearly rotten fabric of his relationship with his son.
Garrison shifted uncomfortably in his seat on the military
transport. He had no knowledge of where he would be taken.
His colleagues, the CIA agents Rennie Vogel had handed him to,
weren t telling him anything. He heard the engines of the plane
rumble to life, a deep, almost comforting vibration beneath his
shackled feet. His hands were shackled as well the metal cuffs
tight, biting into his skin. It was a familiar sensation he had
gotten himself into scrapes all over the world but never had
it felt so permanent. A small tornado formed in his brain as the
knowledge that he was no longer free, and would likely never be
free again, gripped him like a vise.
Rennie Vogel. FBI. He bristled at that. His capture should have
been effected by his own agency. She was obviously a part of their
new counterterrorism special operations group. He wondered
why she was alone and if she had carried out the assassination on
Armin. Women in special forces. He d never thought he would
see it, never thought it possible. She was incredibly strong for
a woman not more than five-eight. Her body, compact, almost
elegant, belied her strength. But Garrison knew that strength
could come from anatomy or it could come from desire. And
when he d encountered her, felt her react as he tried to take her
down, he saw her will overcome any limitations her sex imposed
on her. He thought again of the great Russian novelists and how
literature, the great literature of the past, had failed to consider
woman in all her many and varied permutations.
Garrison heard the distinctive clank of heavy boots on the
corrugated metal steps of the plane. A close-cropped bearded
head came into view followed by more footsteps on the stairs
these much lighter and then the pale blue eyes of his only child
met his own.
His breath nearly escaping him, he stood quickly until the
hand of the burly agent next to him clapped his shoulder forcing
him back into his seat. Garrison turned to the man they hadn t
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exchanged a word since he was escorted aboard the plane.
Please.
The man nodded. Just keep yourself in check.
Garrison rose slowly, taking in the vision of his son was it
an illusion? as he walked toward him. It had been almost a year.
He was still blond as the sun and slight as a girl. How could this
frail creature be any son of his? So like his mother.
Jon was cuffed as well, at the wrist and the ankle, and as they
made their way toward each other, slow and sure, the links of their
chains rang out in the silence of their cabin. They stood, almost
chest to chest, staring into each other s eyes what was there to
say, after all? until finally their heads dipped onto each other s
shoulders, as close to an embrace as they had ever shared.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Rennie sat on the lumpy, standard floral-patterned sofa in
her suite at the Best Eastern Tajikistan Hotel. She was clean and
wearing fresh clothes. Somehow they d found her a pair of loose
cotton pants and a T-shirt. She warranted a suite because her
government wanted to keep her at arm s length nowhere near
the embassy or the intelligence offices and they needed enough
room for her preliminary debrief. There weren t many decent
places to stay in Dushanbe and the Best Eastern was the best of
the lot, which wasn t saying much.
Sitting across from her, on what she imagined was an equally
lumpy sofa, patterned the same, sat three representatives from
the FBI, looking uncomfortable in such a casual setting. Too
bad they couldn t order a cocktail it would likely benefit them
all. The CIA had already come and gone somehow they had
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finagled first dibs at her and she was tired, having slept only a
few hours on the flight from the village. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]