Title: Cynara (1/1)
Author: Rez
Rating: NC-17
Summary: There’s what he’s good at. And what he’s not.
‘Ship: S/S
Archive: Please ask first.
Disclaimer: Alias and its characters are the property
of J.J. Abrams/Bad Robot Productions.
Feedback: lo_rez @ adelphia.net
Author’s notes:
This standalone piece is also the sequel to In Tenebris,
for those who wish to read the stories in order.
Thanks to
Title reference: Non sum qualis eram bonae
sub regno Cynarae
Cynara
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion …
I. Run Time
Prologue
The woman’s heavy hair brushes his skin as she sways
above him, her hands on either side of him; she covers him, envelopes him,
silent, skilled, alert to every response that might increase the pleasure she
gives him. She is lovely, a feast for the senses, and her smile is tranquil as
she rocks against the gathering intensity of his stroke. She flicks back her
hair and raises herself slightly, letting sensation
localize, enticing him upward, harder, and he rises into her from the cool bed
until orgasm flashes through him like sheet lightning, bright and smooth and soundless.
Her hands are soothing as he comes to rest, light and pleasant against his heated
skin. Finally she dismounts, attends to the condom, dresses
with quiet dispatch. She smiles again when he happens to open his eyes. He
watches from the bedroom of the suite as she slips out the door, then rises and
resets the telltales, checks the electronics, throws the lock. He finds the bed
again and plunges into heavy sleep, the first in weeks.
Force the brain to let the body rest. Saturate the
senses; override perpetual vigilance, shut down, for a moment, the endless
recalculation of risk and advantage.
Kill memory.
One
Working capital: the world is awash in money,
“—Delighted, should the volume of
your deposits bear out, certainly,” Mr. Leung is saying.
“—Several lines of credit, yes.
Direct access to funds from many desirable points-of-sale, naturally: ship
brokerages, say, or perhaps”—a delicate pause—“less orthodox venues.”
“And obviously we would be most interested in an equity
stake in any venture… More tea? A
tour of the facility, then.” Ramillies Bank AG
(Schweiz) has a new client. Mr. Leung of the
Fortieth floor of tower three, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank
building, a relatively conservative choice in light of the local predilection
for showy architecture. Outside the building’s glass skin, its grim exoskeleton
frames the view. The interior of this floor is transparent, as well, its core a
huge glass cube.
A selection of private storage vaults, Mr. Leung explains,
gesturing. It looks more like someone’s idea of a stylish library: tables,
carrels, alcoves. People drifting along the aisles of vaults, some seated,
apparently studying. No books.
Armed guards at the heavy glass
doors.
Nor is there any good reason why that should make
A movement in the foreground, then, through the near glass
wall, and the banker’s chatter recedes as Sark gathers his senses, headache
forgotten, seeking a focus. There’s something—something—he can’t tell what.
Something has just happened.
It’s a ludicrous conviction in this sterile, white-noise
environment. Residual sensitivity, that’s all; even after a year or more, glass
walls make him irrationally edgy. He’s looking in from the outside, this time.
It should be funny.
Nevertheless.
Mr. Leung falls back politely as his guest slows the pace
further.
And stops. He’s still as a scenting animal,
with no idea why. He waits, the other man patient
beside him. Some threat here. He scans the group inside the cube, not a clue
what he’s looking for—some anomaly—there. That one. The woman. Not Chinese: brown hair, too tall,
square-shouldered. His pulse jumps.
He can’t see her face, only her seated figure,
three-quarters angle, from behind, but he knows, he knows, and he’s rehearsed this
moment every day and every bloody night for the past year—
And there it is; she moves again, right hand. The long hair
brushed out of her face, swept behind her ear, unthinking gesture that she’ll
repeat—his heart is racing—several times an hour, because that lock of hair
never stays anchored. He forces himself down from full flight/fight but his
heart won’t listen. It’s all he can do to keep her name between his teeth.
She moves once more, turns her head, reaching for a banker’s
box farther down the table, and he sees the profile: high slash of cheekbone,
ripe mouth, and now his heart threatens to stop altogether.
Not Irina.
Sydney Bristow.
He takes another breath, hyperalert
with adrenaline and, he discovers, a fine, cold anger. He waits, needing to be
sure of his voice.
“Very impressive,” he finally tells Mr. Leung, who’s been
waiting for some comment. “Reassuringly secure and—quite
attractive, as well.” The other man smiles appreciatively, following his
gaze.
“We do hope,” he agrees with amusement, “to please our
clients, when they have occasion to visit.“
He goes on, with the air of an obliging tour guide, “The
lady is Miss Lee, a scholar from, ah,
“She is making the translation from the German,” he adds.
“The family have agreed to allow access.”
Back to earth and thinking fast. He briefly considers whether the
man might be Irina’s. Her order,
directing this sighting? Her way of letting him know he’s playing on her
field again?
Odds against. Alex Leung’s got mid-level
associations with Sun Yee On, a giant among triads; he knows that
So the man’s a potential well of information. “How unusual,”
She’s making notes in longhand. The lock of hair has come
loose again and he’s breathing past a sudden constriction in his throat. You
damned fool, he thinks, and the anger ices his blood another few degrees in the
frigid air.
Mr. Leung is watching his client, not the woman. “There are many ways, you see,” he says
casually, “of paying a debt.”
“So I gathered,” Mr. Leung replies, smiling in turn. “Your
air of—assurance, mm?—does suggest so. Yes, unusual. In one so young, I mean to
say.” Another smile.
Mr. Leung adds, “Would you wish to see the terrace garden? Also
very beautiful.”
“I need one month,” she’d said, the litany going through his
head once more as he watches her daughter through the chilly, armored glass.
“I’ll see to your extraction personally.”
He’d held out almost half a year under interrogation in that
other glass cage, waiting for her, before finding his own way out. He’ll never
be that stupid again.
Beside him, Mr. Leung looks up inquiringly.
“Yes,” he says pleasantly, “I’d enjoy that.”
Two
The bank’s patrons favor the
He knows there’s still a small, poisoned shard of hope in
him somewhere—that Irina had never intended to leave
him there, that she’d struggled to reach him but couldn’t; that she was dead,
or fighting for her own survival, and could find no way to get to him. That
she’d tried.
The other explanation’s simpler. It was what she really
wanted all along, to mend what she’d broken when she abandoned her husband and
daughter. And what, moreover, she believed was required to triumph in her long
contest with Sloane over the solution to Rambaldi’s
puzzle.
Jack Bristow. Sydney Bristow. Irina.
The family circle, complete at last.
It doesn’t really matter anymore.
He’s spent the last eight months in overdrive, patching the
holes in his reputation, establishing himself as a top-tier independent
without, he hopes, so much as causing a tremor in the vast, shapeless web of Irina’s influence. Planning.
Three months, two contracts, the first winning the second,
as planned. He took out the second target and arranged to implicate his
client’s political rival as a douceur. It got him the reference he’d
aimed for from the start.
Another three months, research and advance work. Third
client pays for all, and when everything’s in place he’ll make the jump from
freelance to executive of a small, elite organization in one quick move. He’s
got a few dependable lower-level contacts in various places and he’s been
talent-spotting for future recruitment, but the real work is all on him. He
hasn’t stopped moving since he jammed the fucking CIA almost a year ago, and
he’s not about to back off now.
Especially not for Irina, or her daughter.
*
Third client: Mr. John Chiu, of
The Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic
of
Consequently, criminal culture achieves a rare
sophistication here. The executives in charge of competing branches within this
area of enterprise conduct endless quiet wars for status and dominance. There’s
a delicate balance, necessary in a society so tightly packed into its
environment, of rule and transgression, even at the highest reaches.
He knows Chiu’s got fourteen ways figured to cross the deal
once it’s done. He knows each of those fourteen ways has consequences Chiu’s
not willing to suffer. The upcoming meeting is the one where he explains that
to Chiu.
It took him three solid months to cover that ground. He’s
got no second, no right hand—no one, yet, whom he trusts enough to handle such
mortal issues.
He’ll give the whole meeting half an hour, he decides; if
he’s not satisfied by then he’ll walk away. Chiu will cave, eventually. He
loved a woman who left him for someone else. He wants the man’s blood.
He’s a fool, but that’s not material. The woman’s brother is
a potential problem—but again, that’s Chiu’s lookout. The deed won’t
reverberate unduly; it’s actually fairly simple. For everyone, he imagines,
except Chiu, who’ll learn that he’s bought nothing, in the end—certainly not
satisfaction.
But now there’s
Chiu’s job is the least of it; he’s been investing
extensively, using his personal reserves in anticipation of the flow of new
funds. He’ll have to postpone the next trip to
Three
Tagging
He’s put off three meetings and an ungodly amount of
research to take care of this. The heat intensifies his resentment.
Four days and he’s got nothing definite. Her tradecraft is
almost nil; she’s taking no more than elementary
precautions. It’s atypical—
Her pattern is home-university-market-home, on foot and by
public transit. It’s varied the first day by a trip to Ramillies,
no surprise but also no way to get inside the bank unnoticed. He picks her up
again when she comes out two hours later, stays with her easily through the
raucous streets, to the stalls in the Central Market and up the escalator past
Hollywood Road. Home: a block of flats in the Mid-levels,
separated by wide green spaces from the other huge residential blocks in the
immediate area.
He checks the mailboxes once she’s in the elevator. This an expat ghetto; the labels
include English. There are five Lees but only one V-for-Victoria. Second floor, number 221, a cheaper let near the ground. He
goes up the stairs, finds the door, marks the probable
orientation of the interior windows.
The blinds are down. He settles next to a tree across the
landscaped grounds, cateye binoculars in the backpack
he’s been carrying all day. It’s all but raining and he’s boiling with
impatience. Come on,
Nothing.
*
Day two, early, she goes to the Zoo before heading to the
university, joins the crowd at the fountain staircase in
White Crane Spreads Its Wings. But who’s the bird,
She lacks Irina’s coiled menace, he
decides; she doesn’t need it. She’s physically perfect, intention and action
all one thing to her—thought into motion, nothing between. He can barely
breathe in the humid air.
No contacts, no dead drop, no sign of anything.
He follows her to the cool underground of the MTR.
*
Day three. The heat makes everything more
difficult; he’d like nothing better than for her to disappear. Instead, he
trudges to Man Mo Temple in her wake,
Come on,
He drifts methodically around the inside perimeter for a
full ten minutes—fucking hell, she must have seen him, shaken him off. But he
spots her at last, back in the shadows against a pillar, sitting cross-legged,
staring at nothing. The smoke from a bank of burning joss sticks drifts past
her. She blinks, occasionally, and once he sees her shoulders rise and fall, as
if she’s taken a deep breath.
An hour later she gets to her feet and leaves. MTR, market, home.
*
Finally, a contact.
She turns onto the walk and is intercepted by a tall man who
draws her by the arm to the grassy verge, apparently to her surprise.
No idea who the man might be:
Chinese, probably about middle age, handsome. He’s speaking with obvious
urgency to Sydney, who looks up at him gravely. No evasion, no tradecraft, not
even the most basic precaution against being observed, overheard, recorded,
photographed.
Not a typical meet. Not a meet at all,
and the man reaches up as though helpless and draws a tender line with his
fingertips from her temple to her jaw.
She hasn’t moved, makes no gesture in return, no turn of her
head into the man’s caress, but something in the regret on her face tightens
She’s saying nothing and the Zeiss
lenses show with flawless clarity the bent-bow perfection of her mouth, how it
dives in at the corners, how there’s a tension to it, as though she’s thinking
explosive thoughts. The glasses slip in his sweating hands.
The man’s arm drops to his side and he stands there, despair
in the slack hands and the set of the shoulders.
It’ll have to be tonight, and it’ll have to be the hard way.
He finds he’s looking forward, a bit, to that.
Four
He has no intention of actually hurting her—not seriously.
He knows better than most that real damage, where
Her flat is tiny and barren, holds nothing but a few changes
of clothes and some incidentals. He finds the little HK under the pillow on her
narrow bed—a cot, really. He ejects the round from the chamber and pockets the
clip, replaces the gun.
And here she comes. He moves before she’s even inside the
door, giving her no time to sense his presence in the dimness.
He tries for a chokehold from behind but she’s too good,
slides out of his grip like water through a net, driving her elbow hard into
his belly and turning like a dervish. He accepts the hit, enjoying the brute smack
of bone against muscle, as the price for a quick sweep at her ankles, but she
goes vertical on a sharp breath and launches a kick for good measure. That’s
fine, because he can dodge, and it gives him the split-second opening he needs
to catch her mid-turn and bring her jarringly to earth, on her feet but just
barely.
They come to stasis with the advantage all his. She’s lost; a
move in any direction will break a bone or tear a ligament and he’s got
leverage every which way. His right hand curves lightly around her neck from
behind.
But for Irina he could solve this
whole problem so easily, he thinks, and moves his thumb along the soft skin
under her jawline, his face against her hair. She
smells very slightly of something dark—vetiver or
sandalwood, maybe—and he’s briefly displaced because Irina—
“Are you going to kill me,” she asks, and he can feel the
tension in her jaw, “or just fuck me?” Her voice is murderous. His thumb finds
the artery in that tender spot below the bone, presses just enough to make her
gray out for a second or two. Her head lolls briefly, thrillingly against his
cheek. He puts his mouth to her ear.
“Now there’s a question, Ms. Bristow—“ He gives her a sudden, comprehensive shove
because he feels her preparing to move, slides forward in syncopation with her
stumble, regaining his hold.
“—And we’ll get to it, I assure you, but first—” Another
shove, her left shoulder hitting the wall hard. “You’re going to tell me a story.”
He forces her legs wider, keeping her off balance.
“The story. Concisely.
Accurately. Immediately.”
Tightening the lock on her right arm viciously with each
word. Getting an involuntary sound out of her with
each jolt.
“You know,
Smoke from those burning joss sticks, he remembers, when she
sits at the temple thinking—whatever it is she thinks. He can feel the fear
bubbling under her bravado and finds it does arouse him, a bit. She’s not as
smart as she should be. She should know he can’t afford to hurt her. His hand
tightens around her throat again.
“My dear
“The Bristow women—no, don’t try that—are so distracting,”
he finishes, “but we’re going to address that later—”
“What—do you want,
And that deserves another wrench of the arm. Her answering
groan is satisfying but this is new territory for him. He wonders briefly where
the line is, how eager it’s acceptable to be. She feels very good, so snug
against him. He speaks softly into her ear, a few strands of her fine hair
brushing his mouth.
“Don’t.” Again, a small movement of the
locked arm. Again, a sharp, pained sound. “Don’t be stupid.” There’s a
desperate rhythm to her breathing now. He lightens the pressure on her throat.
“Will you at least ask me a goddamn question?” She’s hoarse
but he can’t tell whether it’s rage or pain or just the bruise from his
too-enthusiastic grip. He smiles again, though she can’t see.
“
Silence.
“Now,
A scraping breath.
“Forget it,
He doesn’t quite dislocate the shoulder. The next breath is
more like a sob.
“Where—“ he finds he’s clenching
his teeth “—where is your mother? And,
He feels her weight, suddenly, as though she’s decided to
relax against him. He compensates, preparing for a countermove.
But she’s still.
It’s so unexpected that he’s off balance, just briefly—and she
reads him like yesterday’s news, he remembers that now; she’s out of his reach
with a savage kick. He barely manages to dodge before she’s got the HK in her
fist and pointed at his face.
He’s got the clip. There’s nothing in the chamber.
The flat is inadequately cooled and he’s aware of a knot in
his belly. He understands clearly that it’s his own stupidity that’s produced
the impasse. This shouldn’t be happening at all. There’s a brief, measuring
pause in which her ragged breathing is clearly audible. She lowers the useless
gun.
“The landlord was right about this place,” she says conversationally.
“The feng shui sucks.”
Typical. The shoulder, at least, must be
causing her pain, and her eyes are furious because he frightened her and she
knows he knows it.
“Good evening,
“Like hell,
He’s calmer now, looking at her across the small room, and
he breathes deliberately, fighting self-disgust. Six months locked up like a
rat in a cage, almost a year clawing his way out of the wreck, and the
proximity of Irina’s daughter undoes him so badly he
wants to kill her? Fuck, no. Fatigue drags at him and he flexes his hands,
dismissing it irritably.
“Suppose,” he says, “we sit and talk. Do you think we might
manage that,
*
Useless. He learns nothing.
“I’m out in the cold,
She knows nothing of Irina, or
Sloane, or their plans, individually or severally, she says. Isn’t that his
department? She ran, after discovering Tippin
bleeding out in the bathroom of her apartment. She says.
Activated the first of several identities she’d long ago
prepared. Grabbed the cached money and weapons and ran. Not even her lover knew
about the motorcycle in storage, the numbered accounts, the
hacked records establishing patterns of activity for each stolen ID. Double
agents trust themselves, full stop.
Even the best have blind spots.
Jack Bristow? he asks. Michael
Vaughn? No contact in all this time?
“You think I’m stupid,
Besides which, she adds, the place leaks like a sieve,
hasn’t he noticed? Meaning the CIA.
She asks what he’s getting from Sloane, as though he’s some
sort of bounty hunter, and she’s the prize. She shows no sign of knowing that
her father is missing—or was, at any rate.
No contact with anyone. No attempt at passive intelligence
gathering. No idea, not operational, no, no, no …
She’s an accomplished liar.
“How’d you get out?” she asks, and he’s sure Irina’s already heard the story, whether she’s told
No. He’ll reserve that.
“You’re not with Irina now,” she
comments. He smiles. You should know,
He leaves, finally, with the promise that he’ll kill her the
next time she crosses his track. Her eyes are haunted but he doesn’t flatter
himself that his threat is the cause.
Useless, and four precious days wasted.
Five
Down
Back to his suite at the Mandarin
Oriental, his pied-à-terre on the
He can still smell the sandalwood
from her hair and that, for some reason, brings on the urge to laugh again. He
pulls the duvet over his legs instead, licks his lips, drowsing.
Even now, Irina
won’t leave him alone. I need one month and her hands against his skin:
strong, cruel, sweet, needful touch …
—Refusing to let himself pretend.
Keeping his hands relaxed, at his sides. He beds only the best, lately, and
wouldn’t stoop to getting himself off—especially thinking about her—if his life
depended on it. When the need arises, in any event, he pays for the top of the
line, since pharmaceuticals are out of the question. And tonight, it seems, is
one of those nights after all.
He picks up the phone and dials the
unlisted number of an exclusive establishment off
He’s got to get some sleep.
II.
One
Sweat down the side of his neck. The humidity’s crushing; even
getting from the
One week post-Sydney and no sign of Irina’s dogs. Whatever
A few hours’ sleep is absolutely
necessary. Tomorrow’s meeting in
Then there’s the next meeting with Chiu himself, and
following that a parley with a go-between for Jemaah Islamiyah—and Christ, thugs with political convictions are
the worst sort of trash. He hates dealing with fanatics.
He needs to clear his head. He’s hardly sure what day it is,
lately.
Two
Helicopter from a
private pad in the
The
Also in the week’s
take: Evidence of a schism developing within the sectarian organization that
controls several major drug routes in the Triangle. That will bear watching, as it may
affect the balance of power in the arms trade. It’s as well to be prepared;
he’ll need to do some discreet marketing in northern
Irina’s turf, this. His plans don’t include a challenge
to her interests, where they’re dominant. Sometimes, however, she’s merely one
competitor among many.
Back to the
Mandarin despite the longer trip. He has meetings in Central tomorrow; he wants to be close.
Rooftop touch and a cool drink waiting in the small lounge below.
Elevator to the
suite. Scent of
fresh gardenias in the foyer. The inner door, tropical hardwood polished to a
high shine—ajar, and the interior light shining through into the dim space he’s
standing in.
Fucking hell, he’s too tired for
this. Trust Irina to know that.
The Ruger from the holster at the small of his back, round in
the chamber and careful with the slide. No noise from inside—
“I’m sitting in a chair against the
far wall, facing the door,
—Not Irina;
it’s
Bloody, bloody
hell.
He waits.
“I’ve got a pair of knives in an arm
sheathe, for street protection, no other weapon. I’m going to toss the sheathe toward the entrance.”
Something hits the ground in front
of the half-open door. Black, not heavy. Two small
blades in a Kevlar mesh sleeve, carbon steel, cutout handles for weight
balance.
Meaningless. She’s probably not alone. Would Irina actually believe he’d be foolish enough to
underestimate her daughter? He slides back to the elevator, floor-locks it,
closes the doors. She’ll hear that.
“
Darling
“
“Do that,
—Slowly with the door, pretty
Sydney, or I’ll have to shoot you before we can sort this out, and there’ll be
hell’s own mess to clean up then.
“Talk,
“I’m going to open the door slowly.
My hands are on my head. I’m going to kick the knives out the door.” Her voice coming closer.
“Leave the knives, please,
“I’m alone. I want to talk. I’m not
a threat to you,
Don’t be a bore,
He wonders whether she’s going to
make him hurt her. It’s the last thing he wants. She knows it. It’s surely why
she’s here, waiting for him so calmly. He forced this, in a way, with his
appearance at her flat a few weeks ago; put the ball in Irina’s
court. But he doesn’t want
He’s got to get her away from the
hotel. Find out where Irina is and what she wants.
Get them both out of his bloody way.
He pulls aside the tapestry concealing
the fire exit and motions her forward.
Three
She’s so fucking fast and he
learns the hard way that he’s overextended himself, these last few months. The drink
didn’t help. Payback time. Hard steel muzzle cool
against the sweat at the back of his neck; she could blow the top of his spine
away before he’d have the chance to throw an elbow. He hears her panting. At
least he’s not the only one.
“You stubborn bastard,” and he
doesn’t like the edge to her voice.
—Sudden absence of pressure against
his skin, cold steel cylinder gone. The sound of the slide being released, the
magazine ejected. The round in the chamber coming out, and he’s going to move—
A touch on his right shoulder
reflexively spins him left and she’s got his wrist before he can process the
correct reaction. Holds up his arm between them for a split second, staring him
in the eyes, and smacks the Ruger into his open palm.
Steps back, and he almost drops the weapon he’s suddenly reacquired. Not a
weapon, of course, in its current state. She’s just standing there.
“There’s nobody else,
Bloody woman.
She’d spotted him from the first,
and he’s longing to hit her, in fact, but knows he couldn’t, at this point.
She’s still talking.
“I don’t meet anyone. There’s nobody
to ask, nobody to tell. It’s been two months here and one in
Not a credible word in the lot, but
something’s changed since their last encounter, to bring her here. And if Irina’s waiting for them inside he might as well get it
over with.
Four
The suite is empty and overcooled.
Fucking Irina and her fucking offspring, wasting his time with old
history. He
needs to make her understand that he doesn’t care, won’t cross her as long as
she stays out of his way. That he’s neither available nor
interested, and only a threat if she makes him one.
Irina’s daughter hands him a cup of tea.
He needs the caffeine, so he takes
it from her; the situation’s so full of risk it’s almost absurd to worry about
the potential in any one gesture. Poison? Drugs? Ambush, sabotage; a new compendium of carefully
layered lies and all-but-verifiable disinformation: Irina’s
game. He nods toward one of the chairs, when
Irina and not. Now that she’s at rest in the
bright light he can see she’s thinned down, wrists and ankles more prominent.
Same razor-edged cheekbones, yes, and that mouth will never be anything but
distracting, but there’s something about the whole face that suggests
endurance, and the eyes show she’s in trouble.
He’s starting to wonder, now,
whether there might be some truth in her. She takes a breath. She’s nervous, he
thinks.
“You asked about Irina.
I’m going to give you my hypothesis, okay? Feel free to interrupt with
questions.” Sarcastic, trying for their old style, slanging each other while they traded information.
He nods again, watching her brood over her steaming cup. Her resemblance to Irina is less marked when she speaks.
“I think she set you up. Am I
right?” His grip around the teacup remains light and casual. She’s watching him
closely.
“It was a joke,
“
“She was supposed to get you out,
and she didn’t, did she?”
“
Silence. Then:
“You and Derevko and Sloane and
your little round robin doublecross—my God, don’t you
get bored? This fucking Rambaldi game you’ve got us
all playing. And I’m in it, but that doesn’t mean I have to make it easy. Can’t
use me if you can’t find me, right?”
She takes in a lungful of scented steam from the cup, maybe
to hide the emotion pulling at the corners of her mouth. She’s looking down but
he saw the quick glitter of tears, and the anger jabs him so hard he shifts on
his feet.
“And you know, there’s probably still a traitor in my
section of the agency—or was, last I knew. Too many nicely timed disasters for
it to be a case of hacked data feeds and good analysis.” Her voice is still
steady. “You wouldn’t want to tell me about that, would you?”
He’s not going to answer that one, either.
“No, I didn’t think so.” A tentative sip
of scalding tea. He follows suit, watching her carefully. She’s almost
forgotten where she is, he thinks. But then she looks up, and her eyes are cold
and tired and very much aware of him.
“So I can’t go back to the CIA and I won’t go forward to
Sloane or Derevko. What’s left but sideways? It was
Toronto-Rotterdam-Vancouver-Hong Kong, if you want to know, and here I am, next
stop unknown, and that’s really all there is to it. If you want to make Sloane’s
day,
She’s gambling he won’t try, and he wonders why.
He’s stalling, really, because otherwise he’ll have to
consider the fact that her story, if it’s true, means that he’s made the wrong
assumption all these months, and he’s too tired to look at that objectively
just now.
She left him in the cage because she had other priorities,
perhaps. Or, perhaps, because she had no choice.
“You want me to come back some other time,
“Because I do have a few other
notions.”
He takes a convenient drink of tea, gesturing at her to
continue, though he’d rather be anywhere else, where he might concentrate on
this little struggle with the reflex that tells him he’s got to find Irina because she might need him.
Irina’s daughter smiles bitterly and he
shifts again. She doesn’t need the sidearm, he thinks. Every word out of her
mouth is potentially crippling.
“—The one that doubled my friend Francie, she was yours, right? Not Irina’s
style, and Sloane—he’s a disaster as a handler. Couldn’t run somebody like that
if his life depended on it. She was young.”
Was.
So she didn’t get out, he thinks.
“She all but killed Will. I think the ambulance got to him in
time. I’m pretty sure she’s dead.”
Not I killed her.
“—I’d take credit but I figure her blood’s your problem,
like Francie’s is mine, and Will’s. I should’ve made
better decisions.”
Matter-of-fact, voice level. Another quick glance down, another
drink to hide the convulsive breath, the mouth pulled out of shape. He sees her
willing him not to notice, daring him to sneer. The teacup is burning his
fingers.
She didn’t get out. Allison.
He’d tried to find her, that first month out, without
tripping alarms. Came up with nothing, hoped she’d gone to ground in
She had a failsafe. He knew about it but she would never
tell him the details.
“From my mouth to Irina’s ear?”
she’d said, laughing at him. “Not a chance, English.”
She knew he wasn’t English. She loved to annoy him. Allison.
He sets his cup down carefully on the hotel’s polished side
table. It’s been months since he gave her more than a passing, regretful
thought.
She knew the risks. He’d given her every chance to back out
before the procedure. They’d both known what could happen.
He’d promised her he’d make it right. But they’d both known
what could happen.
Allie.
It’s just fatigue that’s making all of this more difficult
than it should be.
“Francine Calfo was Sloane’s
choice,” he says. “The asset herself was mine.”
—Are you hearing me, Sydney?
She nods.
Evidently not.
“The order to kill Tippin was
also—”
“What was her name?”
She’s really unbelievably good. He’s off balance again.
He’s damned if he’ll talk about Allie.
He looks down at her and it should be amusing that her face
is so stern. Self-righteous
She’s right about Allison. His mistake.
“I’m afraid I don’t remember,” he drawls viciously, and she
launches herself at him, knocks him off his feet and backward into the chair
behind, her weight sinking him into the cushioned trap. Her hands are locked
around bunches of his shirt and leaning hard on his chest, weighing him down
like stones. She’s talking, voice low and shaking, while he tries to get a
trickle of air back into his lungs.
“I know you gave the order. I know Francie
was Sloane’s idea. I even know that your asset probably left Will
alive because she had second thoughts. I’ve had a lot of time to think about
this,
Her face is so pale, so close above his. Yes, he thinks. I
did.
“Did she know that if she’d killed me, you would’ve had to
kill her? Is that why she finally let me win?”
He can’t process that.
She’s got one knee between his legs, resting like a promise
of pain against his groin; he can feel her shaking with controlled violence and
he knows this might still be straight down the agenda. He also knows it’s not
an act. She’s talking as though she can’t stop.
“I didn’t just kill her,
He’s still looking up at her and unless he wants to concede
he can’t let his gaze drop for even a second, though the light’s too bright and
his head is aching like fire. He wills his heartbeat slower. He knows she can
feel it under her clenched hands.
He’s aware of how badly she wants to maul him; it’s coming
off her in waves. Her physical presence is overwhelming and he’s suddenly
struggling with an explosive impulse to touch her. She would beat him bloody if
he did and the thought tempts him.
Her breath stirs the air between them. She smells of oranges
and, slightly, of Gunpowder tea.
“Allison Doren was her name,” he
hears himself say. He allows himself to close his eyes against the glare, just
for a moment.
She pushes brutally away from him and walks past the chair,
and he’s finally able to take a breath. He listens for the door opening. Hears nothing.
The lights go down at the same instant he notices that her
shoes are still on the floor directly in front of him.
He’s out of the chair and away from the framing glow from
the window, seconds too late. Outplayed again—you’re nil for three, you poor
sod. You’re past it. Allie would laugh herself ill.
Irina would kill you.
Irina’s daughter is moving across the room and
he can’t even get to the SIG Pro he keeps strapped to the underside of the
occasional table before she’s back and he has to retreat. How many bloody times
does she have to prove it?
“I left the nine under the table,” she says. “Nice piece.”
She’s giving him plenty of room but she’s still closer than
he is to the table. She’s got Irina’s silhouette in
the ambient glow from the window. She’s going for the gun.
“Here,” she says. “I’ll get it for you.”
Not a move he can make. She reaches, slips the pistol out of
its harness. Checks the safety.
Lays the gun on the table.
“You can do one of two things,
Her face, indistinct in the near-darkness, is very like Irina’s. She’s closer now and he understands finally that
there’s more to this than mere jostling for tactical advantage, or maybe it’s
that there’s less, and it should be amusing. Are you going to kill me, or
just fuck me?
He’s still, feeling her approach as a soft movement of the
air around him. His own breath is a hard, rhythmic sigh while he waits for her,
and she’s finally so close that he can reach out and pull her forward into a
starved and furious kiss because she’s made it seem like the only option left.
It must be that the dimness is such a relief. It must be
that her warm hands against the back of his neck are so insistent. It
must—Christ—
“Upryamuya,” he mutters
against her mouth, badly disoriented.
Stubborn.
She laughs low in her throat but won’t let him pull away.
For Christ’s bleeding sake, you fool, he thinks. This is not Irina.
It might as well be. She’s just as mulish as her mother.
Irina never kissed him like this, never
gave him back this low, enticing hum of approval when he touched her.
Irina’s daughter is warm and pliant and
greedy for him in the chill air of the suite; she wants him out of his clothes,
already has the first buttons on his shirt undone, but he seizes her hands. She
protests but won’t stop kissing him and it would be so easy to let her take him
this way, pretend it’s just what it seems to be. She’s adrift and he’s a
familiar face and he knows she’s always been curious.
And he’s tired and he wants her, in a way—Irina’s child. Untouchable, always, and she discarded him
so easily—
He works his mouth free but can’t seem to level his
breathing because she’s freed her hands and gone back to undoing the buttons on
his shirt. It’s unaccountably erotic and he wants to move closer.
Fucking Sydney Bristow is not part of the program.
He sees her looking at him in the near-dark, waiting with
obvious patience while he fights for the last ditch.
Fucking Sydney Bristow.
“I don’t mind a spot of charity work,” he taunts. “But,
She presses her hand, in answer, against the erection now
obviously straining his tailored trousers and he moves in surprise because,
really, who would have imagined this?
“And I’m not Irina,” she says, and
he’s still thinking Touché when he feels her hands against his bare
skin, and stops caring. He’s not that tired.
No finesse in the way he strips her where they stand, no
subtlety in the way he handles her. No room for manners,
and none that he ever learned, anyway, that serve when matters seem so
desperate.
Are you going to kill me? Or just fuck me?
—Not going to kill her tonight and she’s right; it’s as good
a way as any to play out what’s between them. She’s pulling him closer, bare
legs close against his thigh, and though he’s still clothed it seems he feels
the warmth of her skin even this way—
He’d give in to her insistence but he’s concentrating, at
present, on the strangely intense pleasure he feels at the movement of her body
between his hands. She could hurt him badly but it pleases her instead merely
to struggle inside the cage his hands make around her waist while he takes in
the scent of her hair, his face against her neck.
He curves one palm around the rise of her breast, bends down
and breathes against the smooth arc, tastes the pebbled surface of the
nipple—bites down softly as she strains against him, wanting more. The sound
she makes is a goad and this is all going to be settled very quickly—
“—Bed, bed, moya krassavitsa,” he mutters, pulling her forward, clumsy
as a boy. She stumbles after him, panting, and comes up hard against him when
he freezes, hearing himself.
Feels her hands turning him round to face her, pulling his
head down; her kiss, rough and impatient—
“I don’t care,” he hears. “
Caught between loathing and desire, he can’t move. You
should be past this by now, is his distant thought.
“Have a crisis on your own time,
—That’s amusing. He notes that his breathing is still ragged
and he’s definitely responding to the sight of her body, radiating warmth and
reflected light in the cool air. She’s surprisingly coltish without her
clothes: square-shouldered, long-flanked, big hands and feet.
She takes his hand, presses it flat against her belly, moves
it down to let him feel how ready she is, how wet. She shudders against the
touch, reaches for him involuntarily, and that, somehow, is enough; he moves
his hand, stroking her more deliberately—she’s right again, this is something
he knows very well how to do—and smiles with a touch of malice at the
despairing note in the sound she makes.
“Bed,” he repeats, pulling her into the next room.
Out of his clothes and he’s fifteen again, the woman’s body
a force stronger than gravity and his cock and his lust-impaired brain between
them urging him to further stupidity: Perfect and Now and Need
you against her mouth, and he has to divert the impulse by devouring her,
piece by piece, where she’s lying stretched out and sighing for him. He hasn’t,
apparently, lost his skill; she’s writhing but she’s also impatient.
Too impatient, and he’s on his back well before he’s
finished, but that’s how it’s going to go, it seems. She’ll kiss him to death
soon, he thinks, trying to breathe. His skin is so terribly receptive to
whatever she’s doing with the palms of her hands. He’s not accustomed to being
this vocal and he’s not sure he likes it.
It’s only that there’s been nothing for so long but the
clean, passive, enveloping pleasure Madame Jiang’s
women deliver. This woman is blunt and strong and demanding and doesn’t care,
really, what he wants.
—Trying her teeth on his hipbone and she laughs at the
shiver that goes through him. Her tongue tracing the pelvic
cut, wet fire from hip to hairline, teasing. Warm breath against his
cock, warm mouth, oh, Christ, not yet—
He pulls her up and rolls over, reaches into the lacquered
box on the nightstand, always well stocked by the hotel. She’s evidently
confused by his sudden move until she hears the telltale sound of the foil
packet being torn and then she’s dragging him back down, distracting him—
“—Oh, God,
He gathers his wits, in a hazy sort of way. Takes a handful
of her hair and pulls till she protests. Reaches again, retrieves an unopened
condom from the box.
”Be quiet,” he says, and grabs her wrist. Holds up the small,
square packet between them so she can see it. Puts it
deliberately into her hand. “Take care of it.”
He can see her smile in the dimness but has to close his
eyes suddenly because her hand around his cock is just too intense—no, she’s
not delicate at all about handling him, making quite a production of the
business, till he lies back again and pulls her down just to get her to stop.
“No good?” she asks, panting; straddles one thigh with her
legs sprawled out long and smooth against his. Starts again with small,
concentrated bites down his abdomen and he really can’t permit it, not when it
makes him make sounds like that—
He shoves her away, onto her back; incorrigibly, she reaches
for him, leaning up on one elbow, draws him down, one strong hand at his hip,
pulling him forward—
“—Like this?” she breathes, and he’s down against her and
she’s a furnace—
—Her hips rising, her hand guiding him and he’s in her all
the way, hard, God, move, move—
—Too well-schooled to give way in spite of how she sounds,
and he’s going to watch her come apart under him, anyway, before he lets go.
“Like this,” he tells her, and forces himself deeper, till
she can’t stir more than an inch or two—but she does move that much, and the
tidal power of it moves him with it, stronger than he is. She slips her hand
between them, helping herself, but he won’t have that.
“Like this,” he says, his thumb finding the spot she was
looking for. It’s all she needs.
In the faint light he watches her head strain back, the long
neck arched in a perfect curve, her profile fierce in the stress of orgasm, the
beautiful line of her jaw so tense it might break if he touched it; he’s
panting and she’s wordless, only gasping and moving against him as though
struck.
—Yes, he wants to say, but it’s too much, and words
abandon him along with thought and memory and everything but the huge dark wave
that’s about to come crashing down on him—God, always, always, the need for
completion becomes the fight for control and he wants it, oh, Christ,
but submission is never easy—
He bows under the force of it and lets it take him, comes so
hard his voice cracks. He’d disintegrate if he weren’t so deep inside her, her
hands the only thing holding him together while the orgasm hammers him flat.
*
He lets her breathe, finally, disengages and rolls over with
a quiet moan, completely spent. She laughs softly. Takes care
of the condom. Slants a leg and an arm over him, her
head on his shoulder, her skin still hot under his hand.
He’s as exhausted as if they’ve been at it for hours, the
way he and Allie used to do it, steal the time and make long slow love, her
gentleness with him a deep secret between the two of them. The woman in his
arms is not the same but fits against him just as sweetly. He drifts toward
sleep.
Five
“—Time?” he tries to say, but her fingertips are weights
against his lips. She leans over and kisses him lightly. She’s dressed and
standing by the bed. He can smell his own scent on her hands.
Not good, that she got so far without rousing him. The whole
situation is disturbing. He stirs, limbs heavy as stone.
Sydney Bristow. Not in the program.
“Shh,” she says softly. “It’s
dark. You never really saw me.” She sounds as though she might be smiling. He’s
very uneasy but so tired he’d be reeling if he were on his feet.
“—No—.“ Entrances, exits: don’t
ever lose control of them. She touches his mouth again.
“It’s okay. Go back to sleep now.”
She leaves as quietly as all the other women he’s had here
and he listens for the snick of the lock as she closes the door behind her.
He staggers out of bed and into the next room, checks the
door and the switches to the electronics. She’s left the Ruger
on the table, the magazine beside it. The nine-millimeter, back in its web on
the underside, is fully loaded and set at half-cock. He replaces the clip in
the smaller gun and makes it back to the bed, sliding the weapon under the
pillow.
He sleeps.
Six
He stretches his spine against his seat in the sleek jet’s
undemocratic cabin. The meeting went extremely well and he’ll be following up
in
An up-and-back to
A flying meeting
to discuss purchase of an interest in one of the PLA-owned clubs in
Colonel Wu of the
He needs to read the files on the other attendees expected
at a small social gathering, planned for next week, hosted by the managing
director of
He needs to consider the problem of Sydney Bristow, sitting
like an unexploded mine in the center of everything he’s built; crippling,
destructive, a magnet for disaster.
She may, of course, be gone. He’s had other priorities;
their last encounter almost convinced him that whatever she’s after, it’s
nothing to do with Irina.
Irrelevant.
Not in the program.
Seven
Chauffered Rolls from Chek
Lap Kok back to the Mandarin and he’s headed out to
Wan Chai on foot an hour later, just as the rain
comes on again. His target for Chiu’s job dines at the same restaurant every
Thursday night during the summer. There are enough older buildings along
Not his preference, and he’s got to
find the right spot and secure it through cut-outs; his local contacts aren’t
yet solid enough to be trusted with too much information. He slogs through the
deluge, cap pulled low, checking routes and angles. The streets are still busy,
the shops as crowded as ever. He’s careful but he feels the fatigue more, for
some reason, in the rain; he has to fight to stay sharp.
He’s got three possibles
and it’s late. He’ll have to go back to the Mandarin; he’d thought to take the
ferry back to
She hasn’t come back to him. She doesn’t want him, maybe got
all she needed—whatever it was—that first time.
Tomorrow. He’s going to find her at the
university. He’s going to find her in the park. He’s going to go to the temple
and drag her into a corner and fuck her through the wall.
He’s going to bloody well forget about it.
He’s too tired and she’s not who he really wants, anyway.
He steps out of the elevator and stops because she’s there,
turning as if to leave, though there’s no way out but where he’s standing. She
looks almost frightened, a thing he never believed he’d see. Faces him as
though he’s some sort of ordeal she has to pass, God knows what, and takes a
breath.
“I thought—“ she begins, but after that brief paralysis he’s
already crossed the narrow, scented space and she gives way, Sydney Bristow,
till her back’s against the door and he can reach his hand to her mouth,
touching her mute—enjoying the victory more than he should, really—and say,
with gentle satire:
“You thought?”
That stiffens her spine, starts a frown between her brows.
She pushes her shoulders away from the door, wanting to force him back a step.
This is a familiar game between them, an old game; he wants to laugh but she
might misunderstand that.
She’s miscalculated, this once. He
puts a hand against the small of her back and draws her the
last few inches forward, letting her feel how hard he is, already wanting her.
She takes a breath as though to protest but decides, at the last second,
against speech.
He bends his head to take her kiss and has enough sense left
to put his thumb to the biometric lock behind her. It flashes green and he
pushes the door open. They stumble in and let it close behind them.
He’d forgotten, somehow, in the intervening week, about her
way with a kiss, but he remembers now and he’s got her back against the wall
again, knee between her legs, hands under her shirt, pulling her close, greedy
mouth tearing frantically into hers and it’s so good, so good—
Shirt buttons torn away, nothing underneath but Sydney,
He tastes salt in the hollow of her throat, feels the cool
allure of her breast against his lips, takes in the scent of her and sighs into
the maddening, enslaving, utter perfection of the velvet skin of her belly—and
the trousers she’s wearing are an unacceptable impediment—
Fastened at the back. He undoes the zip and drops to one
knee, dragging them over her hips, down to her knees, forcing her legs apart as
she staggers back against the wall. Sweeps his hand roughly through the dark,
crisp, tangled hair between her thighs, ignoring whatever she’s saying.
Bends his head, opens his mouth against her, dying for
her—she’s potent as brandy, ripe and warm and so wet against his tongue. She
was too impatient, last time. He wants her now, every last bite.
He hears her gasp, feels her hands in his hair, takes a
bite—she’s a peach, a melon, a whole market-full of forbidden fruit, silky on
his lips, drenching him, juice running down his chin—
But not sweet, never sweet; she’s elemental—rainclouds, wet leaves, lakewater—
Nothing like Irina; this is
“
She’s not stopping him. She doesn’t want him to stop. “
He pulls her closer, starved, too long since he’s had
her—hears her gasp again as she starts to move with him, open to him now, hips canted, legs wide—
That’s better. There’s more of her this way. He takes her
greedily, leaning in, lapping at her—she’s sinuous as a mermaid between his
hands, and how that moves him; he’s tasting seafoam,
kelp—feeling her, soft as sealskin against his cheek, smooth as pearl in his
mouth—Wanting her, Christ, he feels how it will be, feels what she needs—
She’s moaning, very softly. He lightens the pressure of his
mouth, finds the hard, sweet center of her, feels the
intensity of her response when he circles her clitoris with his tongue. Again,
again, he’s going to come just listening to her—
—Shh, too much. He’s barely
touching her, now, but the delicate stroke of his tongue is inexorable, and
she’s sighing with need half-satisfied, pleading with him for more. He teases
her, laughing very low, slows down till she presses closer, complaining—even
her voice sends a tickle of sensation to his lips. She moves—he pursues,
letting her feel the edge of his teeth. She laughs in turn, helplessly, head
thrown back, and braces one leg wider to give him more room. She’s glad of
him—more than Irina ever was—
He feels her find the rhythm, follows the subtle sway of her
hips, feels every small change, every jolt of
sensation. The urgency of her movement knots his belly He’s aware of the
perfection of her skin, taut and alive with stress against the palms of his
hands. He pulls her closer still, his hunger sharp, unappeased, her name, Irina’s name, endless echo in his head—and she’s saying his
name—some name—not Irina’s voice—
This isn’t Irina but he’s
voracious, can’t get enough, impossible, and he’s fierce, holding her hard, no
escape for this one, she’s his now—he exults in her cry, her weight surging
against him, the sudden pulse of heat, the satin feel of her as she comes
against his open mouth.
He breathes through the dark tangle, wanting her scent; softens
his hold, breathing her, drinking her like wine—oak, smoke, cherry bark—while
she gasps, legs braced hard as steel but unsteady under his hands.
He hears her take another shuddering
breath, lets his hands fall away from her.
Drops his head back; looks up,
finally, at Irina’s daughter, at Sydney, sees
something like a smile in the brown eyes as she slips down to her knees and
kisses his mouth, still smeared and warm. They end up together on the polished
parquet floor in front of the door and he’s actually in pain, Christ, it’s been
years since he was this out of control, and he can’t take her on the
floor of the Tamar suite at the Mandarin—although, why not?—and he can’t
believe the feel of her against him as laughter shakes her, damn the woman.
He feels an answering smile curl his mouth. His clothes are
still wet from the rain and she’s almost naked and must be hellishly
uncomfortable sprawled over him on the wood floor. Laughing.
Not what one looks for, normally, after a performance such
as that.
“Any complaints, Ms. Bristow?” he asks, and he finds he’s
running his fingers down the skin of her back. It’s ridged with scars.
She’s still laughing, forehead against his shoulder, and
it’s strange how that feels like a relief, though his cock is trapped painfully
between his belly and the fly button on his jeans and, on the whole, death
would be preferable to further delay.
She rises to her feet with that uncanny physical couth
that’s always, truth to tell, intimidated him just a bit. Looks over her
shoulder, but he’s slow to notice because her beautiful ass is so—beautiful,
and the curve of her spine sends another jolt of pure lust weltering through
him. Even the marks crisscrossing her back are lovely, a message in cipher
carved into her skin.
Her grin gets him to his feet, however. He shrugs out of his
shirt, undoes the jeans with a silent prayer of gratitude, moves forward so he
can take handfuls of her long, fine hair and pull her head back, baring her
throat. She’s still, submitting to his heavy touch.
The geometry of her face is stark in the dim light, eyes,
cheekbones, mouth like the bright points of some new constellation. He finds
her pulse with his lips.
“
“Yes?” Her voice is rough because her head’s back against
the palm of his hand.
He takes a long breath against her skin. “Are you going to
kill me?” he asks, “or just—”
His other hand, at the curve of her waist, registers the
little shiver that goes through her, but it’s his mouth against hers that gets
the full delicious resonance of her laugh.
“We’ll see, won’t we?” she says.
Eight
He’s prone on the solid platform rising just below the
window, with the Barrett up on its bipod. A sniper’s mask hides the blond hair
and fair skin, and the balance of his clothing is black, down to the cotton-lycra gloves that leave his fingers exposed. The room is
stifling and he’s sweating freely but the target’s head and shoulders are
beautifully clear through the scope and
The best site for Chiu’s job has proved out as he’d hoped;
it’s an old office above a storage room used by a group of glassware vendors,
clear line of sight about 400 meters from the back door of the restaurant. The
weapon’s delivered on schedule, a modified Barrett M99 with a Russian-made optical
scope fitted to the rail, the silencer, and two five-round magazines with
high-carbon loads. He inspects it for numbers but the piece is clean, as
guaranteed. The checkout assembly and live-fire test are satisfactory.
The weather holds for tonight’s dry run but he’s expecting
the worst when the job is actually at hand. Tonight the target arrives on
schedule, his driver pulling up to the back entrance, discharging the
passenger. He’s a regular customer and an important man—in his own mind—and
it’s his habit to inspect the kitchens before being seated. His bodyguard is
merely decorative, of no concern to
The target’s mistress, lately Chiu’s, waits for him inside,
at the table kept for their use each week.
The back door opens outward at an unfavorable angle relative
to
He frames three clear shots in thirty seconds of
visibility—adequate, not ideal. The driver will likely be the first to react
but
He scans the surrounding shadows through the night-vision scope
he’s brought along. The alley is usually empty; it’s likely there will be no
other witnesses. Rain will mean umbrellas and other complications, and things
might destabilize. No way to tell in advance.
The target always exits through the front. Sark’s put together a fallback in case he can’t take the
shot as planned, but it’s dicier—a rooftop halfway
down the block from the front of the restaurant. He won’t risk a visit today.
If it’s raining on the actual night it’ll be moot anyway.
He’s done as much as he can. He breaks down the Barrett and
heads back to the Mandarin. He hasn’t used the suite at the
*
He never knows when she’ll be there. He never visits her
flat. She’s never, since the first time, entered the suite without him.
They don’t eat or drink or even speak much together. She
never stays the night.
The boundaries are narrow and strict and caught inside them
is something he can’t look at too closely—his motives, hers— but also won’t
willingly do without, for the moment. Just for now, and at least he’s learned
to keep his breathing under better control in that instant before the elevator door
opens onto the foyer and he can see her—or not.
He can see her.
Nine
There’s no rush, it seems, tonight. He’s kissing her in a
meditative sort of way, sprawled over her on the bed, enjoying her languid
movement against his thigh, and he raises his head, licking his lips.
“What have you been eating?” he asks, because she tastes
sharp and fresh and the inside of her mouth is cool.
She blinks, focusing, and he’s aware that it pleases him
shamefully that Sydney Bristow should be so distracted by his kiss. She grins
and he notes the lopsided curl of the corner of her mouth and especially the
dimpled line to the left of it—
“Shouldn’t a food snob know what fruits are in season? I
thought you were such a connoisseur,
Not even a hint that the subject makes her think of her
friend, the one Allie—
“I am a connoisseur,” he replies, and shifts away
from her just enough to slip a slow, wicked hand between her legs. She rolls
her eyes.
Very well.
He slides his fingers through the crisp hair and down into
the warm, wet, unbelievably soft zone under the protective folds of skin, and
draws them back up again, lingering very lightly over
the small knot of her clitoris. She takes a sharp breath. She’s deliberately
still, won’t give him the satisfaction of moving against the slow stroke of his
hand.
He does it again, more slowly still, pressing gently against
the pelvic bone; feels the muscles contract involuntarily. She can’t quite
suppress a quiet little sound, and he smiles. He could keep her going this way
for hours.
She let him know from the first that she wasn’t interested
in technique.
“I’m not a software program,
If statements and do-loops: calculated pleasure. She assumes
it’s his way with Irina, he surmises, or maybe Irina’s with him. Not that she cares, seemingly, what he
and Irina do. Did.
She cares a great deal about not doing the same, that’s all.
She doesn’t want him smooth and clever and cool, likes him better raw than
refined, and he can play that as well as he does anything else.
She’s definitely a bit agitated now.
He withdraws his hand very slowly, trails his wet fingers up
to the space between her breasts. Her breathing is uneven.
“Blue-eyed bastard,” she says softly. He licks his fingers; he’s
already hard as rock because her scent trips some Sydney-sensitive neuroreceptor and he’s just another one of Pavlov’s dogs,
every time.
“I am a connoisseur, Sydney,” he repeats. “Can it be that
you need a reminder?”
A challenge, but he knows by now she won’t respond. She never
lets him turn it into a contest. He’s tried to goad her into some sort of
resistance because, after all, that’s the kick of it; they’ve always been
adversaries.
She started it, in fact, taunting him: Are you going to
kill me …?
Uncanny echo of Irina, how she
always showed him some hard choice, made him fight for satisfaction, forced him
to surrender something in order to capture the prize only she could bestow. It
was exhilarating. He always won.
A first, that.
He’s propped on one elbow, crowded up against her, one leg
over hers. He’s curious.
“It’s all just sex,
That slow smile, so like Irina’s.
She reaches, matches his movement, and he has to make a sound, only a small
one—
“You,” she tells him, “have no idea.”
—And perhaps he does
surrender something to her—for her—like this. Perhaps he would.
The bed is four meters square. They meet here and nowhere
else.
But how they do meet.
III. Weather
One
The two rooms are decently appointed but not opulent, a
measure of the national distaste for egregious display. The Swiss summer is
bright and cool outside the window and
“Your accounts have been unusually active of late, dear
boy,” she observes, watching him turn another page. He raises his eyes.
“Yes,” he says, “I’ve been a nuisance, I realize. I’d hoped
to soften your indignation with good news.”
Madame is small, leonine, maned with white; she tilts her head. The deep lines
at either side of her mouth crease with her smile.
“Always a pleasure to see you, my
dear.” Her tone
is sedate. “Though I’m afraid we must discuss the telecom properties you
acquired last year through the Holt AG entity. The risk profile, in the current
economy …” She lets the sentence trail off, her smile growing. He’s quirked a
brow at her.
“Of course, Madame,” he agrees politely, and she laughs out
loud.
“Ciel, what an irritant you
are! Were those eyes one fraction less blue, my boy, I would have sold you to
my less-forgiving confrères in
In the black pelagic waters of private transnational finance
and its attendant concerns, Madame Roche is a very big fish
indeed—a shark. She’s been his chief financial advisor for nearly a decade. She
leans back in the wing chair opposite him, her own eyes cold and gray as a
winter sky. Her smile disappears.
“Now tell me,” she says, and he slots a RAM-stick in the
black console at his elbow. A diagram appears on the flatscreen
display against the near wall, columns of unitless
numbers and curves with coordinates unlabeled.
“These projections …” he begins.
*
“Ramillies.”
Madame Roche is brooding, her
fingers steepled, having grilled him for more than an
hour on the particulars concerning his latest independent investments and the
configuration of the corporate structures set up to handle them.
Everything he’s showed her is ostensibly legitimate,
naturally; her ability to read above, below, and between the lines is
remarkable. The net profit from what he’s presented will be flowing back to her
own establishment with the assurance that none of it will ever be of interest
to prosecutors. The total worth of his accounts will increase by several orders
of magnitude.
Her chief concerns satisfied, she considers, without
actually alluding to its purpose, his engagement of one of her competitors for
the riskier business of routing a large stream of illegally acquired cash into
more transparent areas of the global economy.
“They’ve done well for you,” she declares. “I believe it’s
all in order.”
He sits back, relaxing again. He hadn’t really doubted it;
he’s reasonably thorough. She pours him more coffee.
“It has been more than a year since I saw you last,” she
remarks, an invitation to disclosure.
“An eventful period,” he says cordially.
His association with her has always been private and direct.
She has no information, officially, on his former connection with Irina Derevko’s organization, nor
of his consequent severance from it. What she actually knows, he believes, is
considerable.
“Bon,” she says briskly. “A time of many changes,
yes. But still I remember my charming client, my blue-eyed homme
fatal, who neglects me and then calls upon me for expensive favors.”
She’s baiting him; her commissions are huge. He smiles.
“Yes, I have something else for you,” she says, and hands
him another RAM-stick. He ejects his own and inserts it. A surveillance image
appears on the wall display. A man.
A man he knew, once upon a time.
*
“I remembered your former, mm, interests in
A former
“I consider it my duty to protect my clients’ investments,
naturally,” she continues. “This duty sometimes extends to a certain
watchfulness concerning peripheral matters that might threaten to—escalate.”
She gestures for the remote. He hands it to her, watches the
next image appear. A building in flames. Several buildings.
“A medical facility, research only. And this is in
“The premier biotechnology
laboratory in the region. And this—“ A figure silhouetted
against another building, wreckage everywhere.
A closer shot, and his hands flex
involuntarily on the arms of the chair. He relaxes deliberately. He knows
what’s coming.
And closer. Detail very pixilated here, but the
subject’s clear.
“Where?” he asks. Cool, smooth voice, always the
same. No answer.
He looks at the woman in the chair opposite.
“Where?” he repeats, very
gently.
She looks back at him, unmoved.
“The question, surely,” says Madame Roche, “is: When?”
He leans back. “Either will do,” he says. And: “Is there
more?”
She taps the remote.
—Irina, in profile, firing a rifle
of some kind at a distant figure, her body beautifully relaxed, stance
perfectly balanced. His hands are still.
—The figure in question, obviously fleeing, flanked by two
others. Something about the posture…
—A very blurred enlargement, but still clear enough to allow
identification: Arvin Sloane, still on his feet.
“Who put this together, Madame Roche?” he asks quietly. She
smiles.
“Oh, my dear, my staff is really very good. But I confess
that the most arresting images, the woman and her … target, came from an
unexpected source. Someone I don’t know at all.” She flicks the remote again
and he watches, thinking, oddly, of
Jack Bristow.
Two
Madame Roche’s little information bomb: The only real jolt
in the entire performance, objectively considered, is the number scrawled in
blue ballpoint on a scrap of white cardstock. M. Bristow’s emergency
contact, Madame Roche had explained.
“Of course,” he’d replied, smiling.
Jack Bristow had engineered the introduction to Hélène Roche
through an exclusive and secretive organization of private bankers—one riddled,
obviously, with security holes. He’d presented her with a packet of information
on the chance, he’d said, that one of her clients might find it of interest. She’d
made the correct analysis after a certain amount of auxiliary research. Her
subsequent intelligence-gathering on Jack Bristow himself is a given. She
doesn’t mention it.
It’s interesting, naturally, that Irina
is still alive and still gunning for Sloane, assuming those images are genuine.
Better to know it than not, but that’s really where it stops. Purely personal
considerations aside, the information’s worthless to him.
On the other hand, there’s Jack Bristow’s number, the
undoubted point of the whole exercise.
There’s the distinct possibility that he’s let
*
Geneva-Amsterdam-Hong Kong, fifteen hours.
Plenty of time to go over every moment of each encounter,
and everything between, and to conclude that while he is, clearly, a fool, it’s
not with her connivance. Somewhere, Jack Bristow is laughing.
Reviewing every word from every
possible angle.
She’s never asked him anything. For anything, beyond
the obvious. A cup of tea, once.
You can do one of two things, she’d said to him that time,
leaving the weapon within his reach. Either one is fine with me.
And before that:
Are you going to kill me? Or just—
He thinks of her in the park, following the old woman
through each turn of the t’ai chi set, face as blank
and unmoving as a doll’s. Of the man she’d sent away that day at the university
library. The pathetic place she lives in, so empty it might be tenantless.
Sydney Bristow, the gifted, the great, the standard he’d
once aspired to reach, subsisting on academic scraps to get her through till
the world’s sane again? It’s already been more than a year, and the brown eyes
that used to burn so hot are ashy and cold and dead.
Sydney Bristow, discarding her
convictions every time she steps through his door? Compromising till there’s nothing
left to lose?
*
He’d hesitated even to tell her he’d be gone; neither of
them has ever said a word about next time. There is no next time. Until there is. He knows there’ve been nights when she’s
come to his suite and he hasn’t appeared. Plenty of nights when he’s waited for
her, sleepless, till dawn.
It seemed rude to withhold the information, this trip being
a longer one. He wasn’t specific about how long.
An awkward moment, outside the boundaries they’re easy with.
The helicopter picks him up at Chek
Lap Kok and heads for the
She could be gone, of course. She’s been here almost three
months. Time to move on,
*
Midnight again and he’s made some headway through the
backlog of new files and incoming contacts, his circadian stutter more
pronounced with the recent displacement to another time zone.
He’s been too long without sleep. Chiu’s job is up tomorrow
night, or so he’s planned; a few hours’ rest is essential. He encrypts the
documents he’s been reading and shuts down the notebook, aware that he’s been
deluding himself all day. He telephones the hotel’s remote helipad.
He makes it across the harbor just before the rain comes on,
stranding the pilot.
He might as well be sleepless at the Mandarin.
*
He hadn’t actually expected to find her here. She waits for
a moment after the elevator door has closed. He hears her say quietly:
“I can leave. You look tired.” She hasn’t moved, not wanting
to crowd him, he suspects. He opens the door to the suite and pulls her gently
inside, turns up the lights a little.
“No,” he says, and finds he can’t formulate any further
reply because it’s suddenly clear that what he would have to say and what he
would mean by it are, for once, perfectly congruent.
“No,” he says instead, and the feel of her long hair between
his fingers is marvelous, but what’s going through his head is this:
I flew halfway round the bloody world to pick up a message
from your father, Sydney. He’d like to speak with you.
And this:
They all want you. I want you. You’re only a wildcard to
them but if you work with me you’ll deal the whole bloody hand. If you’re going
to be a player, you’re going to be mine.
Hurting her gratuitously would be stupid but if she’s going
to hurt herself regardless, making the wrong choices, he’ll take whatever he
can get.
He realizes he’s been staring at her for the last minute.
She’s got that scorched smile in her eyes, as always when she knows he’s
thinking about Irina.
“Which one am I tonight?” she asks, and he knows it’s not a
stab or even a slap, just Sydney’s damned bleak sense of humor, and it really
doesn’t matter to her that he’s thinking of her mother. Only, of course, he
isn’t.
He runs his fingertips along the neckline of her shirt,
liking the way her eyes narrow at the sensation.
“The other Agent Bristow isn’t half so sexy,” he murmurs,
because her father is very much in his mind. The brown eyes widen for a second,
then narrow again, the corners raying out with laugh lines.
“I don’t know,” she says, low-voiced. “Some people think
he’s really hot.”
Irina among them, of
course. Wicked
“Now you’re worrying me, Sydney,” he says, finding the zip
on her skirt.
“You should talk,” she replies, sly kick at the speculation—rife,
once, around the CIA watercooler—that Irina Derevko is actually his
mother.
He raises a brow. She’s not really asking him, just trying
to provoke.
“Would it matter?” he asks, curious now. They sometimes end
up in surprising places, the two of them, when they talk. She looks back at him
and the darkness glitters in her eyes. She reaches for his wrist, starts on the
buttons at his cuff.
“Not enough to make me stop,” she replies, and he finds
that’s really all he can take, for the moment. She’s smiling, intent on the
task. The figured Chinese rug they’re standing on is knotted silk, heavy and
soft. That will be fine for tonight.
*
“Nobody chooses damnation,
An edge of desperation there, and
her pulse has started to pick up, so he knows he’s making progress. He breathes
against her temple, combing her hair with his fingers.
Typical Sydney, a bit heavy on the
melodrama, but on the whole an accurate picture of the case. She’s not really talking about
herself, in spite of their earlier exchange. It’s him she’s seeing, and there’s
a kind of hopeless understanding in her voice. He kisses her hard to shut her
up.
Damnation isn’t how he thinks of it. And it’s nothing he
hadn’t figured out years ago.
*
He’s going to have to give her that number. He’s going to
have to find Irina. Break things down to their
component decisions and it’s usually true that the
simplest move is the best.
—But now he’s in her, each hard stroke a reply to her
quickening motion against him. Watching her let go; and this time it has the
simplicity of flight, her sudden gasp an expression of utter delight at leaving
the ground at last. She opens her eyes, still sighing, and he leans to kiss her
smiling mouth as he feels the prelude to orgasm begin to wash through him.
And he wants, oh, yes, he wants to drop his head; bury his
face against her neck and hide his eyes, because he’s really very tired and
they ache, sometimes, but he makes himself watch her watching him as the feel
of her around him sweeps everything away like a strong, clean wind from some
new country. She draws him down against her and he lets it blow him away.
*
She’s getting dressed and he’s pulled on his jeans. He sees
her pause, obviously being tugged toward the door, but hesitating. Sometimes
she’ll leave him with a light kiss. Sometimes not.
Something odd in her look, in the
soft glow from the wall sconces. She comes back toward him.
He never anticipates, won’t reach for her.
No kiss this time, just her fingertips following the narrow,
furred line that starts beneath his navel and disappears into the unbuttoned waistband
of the jeans. It’s still a mystery to him how she can make the simplest thing unspeakably
erotic.
She seems mesmerized but lets her hand drop, finally, steps
away from him again. Her voice is low and offhand.
“Irina’s such a fool,” she says.
Not a molecule of air he can use, for an instant, but he
tries, tired as he is, to deal with it reasonably.
“So are you,” he says, after a moment. It’s the only thing
that occurs to him.
Her smile is brilliant in the low light. There’s no sound as
the door closes behind her.
Three
He’s pacing the suite, which is too damned small, and he should
catch up on reading because there’s always a backlog. He doesn’t even bother to
open the safe.
Sydney Bristow in his bed: A very high-risk pleasure.
She appears—perhaps—and they fuck, and for just awhile afterward—also
perhaps—they’re quiet, lying together. She leaves. It’s simple.
You’d think, under those circumstances, that he’d be able to
get some sleep. But she’s gone for the night and he’s wide awake and wound
tighter with every bloody hour that goes by. Sleep is an unreachable necessity.
This will be made manifest when he botches Chiu’s job for lack of it.
He’d thought the problem was diminishing. They removed the
possibility, the CIA, holding him in that glaring glass cage, of simple rest.
He’s been doing it to himself ever since he got out.
A self-destructive game, maybe. Terminal disgust over the earlier mess
he’d made. Allison.
Revenge, maybe. Sydney, standing in for her mother, going
down with him when he finally sinks for good because—is he admitting it?—he’s let
the Bristow women drag him in too deep. Again.
No. No, soberly considered, things are moving according to
strategy. He’s planned carefully and built well; his nascent organization will
shortly be making itself known in several areas of enterprise. Chiu’s job is
all but taken care of and those new funds will start flowing shortly. Irina’s evidently distracted with other things and there’s
been little sign of other trouble on any front. He’ll be getting out of here on
schedule.
He catches his reflection in the sitting room mirror, stares
at himself, suddenly displaced. Same eyes, same face. He doesn’t know what she
sees,
She left two hours ago. He wants her back.
He can’t operate on his own forever and there’s no one like
her: partner, ally, so formidably talented. He knows it would bring Sloane and Irina and a whole dark flock of old trouble circling back
down on them like a band of harpies. Jack Bristow most of
all. The chances, anyway, are so slight. He’s got no leverage, as he
once did, that would force her in his direction. She’d never agree to it.
Keep repeating that until you understand it. She will never
say yes.
“The only good thing about secrets,” she’d said tonight, “—they
don’t have much of a shelf-life.”
Quiet hope that she’ll wake one day
and find that her strategic value on the chessboard has sunk to zero. That she can go home. She doesn’t
really believe it.
—Because we’ll kill you before we’ll let you quit, won’t we,
darling, and what are you doing here, suffocating in this bloody, bloody heat,
fucking a thug in a bespoke suit for lack of anything better?
He hears himself breathe in the silence, too fast.
Christ, man. Get some bloody sleep. You’re losing it.
Four
The vertical landscape glitters in the stifling air, looming
shapes rising into the occluded night sky like skeletons lit from within.
On foot to Wan Chai,
Thursday night.
The approach to
The sun’s been a hammer all day, striking the
steel-and-glass surfaces till the heat is so intense it sinks of its own weight
into the canyons formed by the high buildings. The rain’s held off but it won’t
for much longer. He arrives at the glass-vendors’ storeroom through a maze of
backstreets, with twenty minutes to spare. His target is always prompt.
The Barrett’s waiting in its case under the false bottom of
a packing crate on the ground floor.
He removes the baseball cap that’s concealed the sniper’s
mask rolled up to his hairline. His hair is already drenched. The mask’s
integral sweatband is half soaked.
He assembles the Barrett, positions the bipod, sighting
through the scope, till it’s approximately right. Snaps in the magazine and
pulls on a pair of cotton-lycra gloves, fingerless. Then
the mask is down and he’s prone on the platform, effortless shift to perfect
balance in the familiar position. He adjusts the scope for windage
and checks the filter. No glare from the lights.
He’s forgotten his fatigue, abandoned the consciousness that
he has a body, that it’s uncomfortably warm, that time is passing. The weather
is holding.
The vehicle turns into the alley on schedule, pulls up to
the door. He watches the bodyguard step out, no umbrella, and open the rear passenger door. Sees the back door to the
restaurant open simultaneously, the restaurant manager emerging as the target
straightens and exits the car. The bodyguard bending to close
the door. The manager extending his hand. A choreography of arcs and angles, beautifully clear and
comprehensible to the sniper.
Now a single second divides itself into infinite parts. In
one of those tiny slices is a perfect picture through the scope, and the sniper
is only an eye, only a brain. There is no trigger, no hand embracing it between
one breath and the next. Only the shot, achieved.
The target is down.
The little knot of panic between the vehicle and the
restaurant door seems to dissolve. The car lurches out of position, nearly
ramming the opposite wall in the narrow alley. The bodyguard and the manager
are both on the phone. The manager disappears, returns with what looks like a
tablecloth in his hands. He drapes it distressedly
over the humped figure on the ground.
The rain comes suddenly, roaring like the apocalypse.
Sixty seconds. Gloves. The
cartridge retrieved. The Barrett disassembled and back in its
case.
He steps into the downpour, the rain streaming off the
Yankees cap. On the main road, in a sea of umbrellas, the crowds are hardly
thinner than when the sky was merely overcast. He meets Chiu’s driver two blocks
away, is driven to the waterfront at
The storm anchorage is crowded with boats but there’s no one
about. He slips into an unoccupied marine supply warehouse and threads his way
through piles of tackle to a corner behind an old bank of files. The Barrett’s
components go into the drum of industrial solvent he finds there, followed by
its case, and the plastic, carefully unfolded. Later they’ll be retrieved,
weighted, and dropped into the
He returns to the waiting driver and directs him to the
Mandarin. On the way, he notifies Chiu’s cutout that the contract has been
discharged. The funds should start flowing within the hour.
*
And now there’s
She hated playing the prize in her parents’ mad games with
Arvin Sloane. He wonders whether she’ll understand that she can be all that she
was and still remain free of them.
He’s got so much to offer. She could take on any of a dozen
projects without feeling tainted. He’ll do whatever is necessary to carve them up
into clean, acceptable bits, things she can look at. It would surely be a
relief for her to stretch herself again, be who she is.
It’s so clear. She’ll see that, surely.
If it’s Michael Vaughn she wants, he would even try to give
her that, if he could. He can’t afford to be possessive. He needs her too much.
Chiu’s driver has overcooled the vehicle.
She never stays long. If he’s going to try, it’s got to be
tonight—if she comes tonight. He’s known for days that she’s preparing to
leave.
Five
A hand holding her wrist, where
she’s started on the buttons to his rain-soaked shirt. A hand to her face, fingers
following the line of her jaw, asking for her attention.
—Stop a moment, just let me do this.
He releases her, steps back, not wanting to confine her. He
holds out a square of white cardstock, retrieved from the mantelpiece, inviting
her to reach for it. She does.
“Your father left this with one of my people in
She looks down, takes in the number. Looks
back up.
“Do you know where he is?” she asks, and he’s surprised at
her calm.
“No, Sydney. I don’t know anything. I’m the—very
reluctant—messenger. He seems to know, somehow, that you and I might be—in
touch.” She’s staring at him, weary comprehension in her eyes. She smiles,
tentatively.
Oh, but there’s worse,
“He’s either working with Sloane or in pursuit of him,” he
says. “I’m afraid I’ve been unable to determine which. I had thought that he
might be with your mother, but that appears not to be the case.
“Before you decamp,” he adds, “perhaps you could leave me a
more direct contact.”
He watches the smile fade till there’s nothing on her face,
her eyes blank as a statue’s. He lets it drift, downs the impulse to touch her
again. She’s silent.
“If you’d rather avoid further involvement in the Rambaldi business, I can offer an alternative. I could use
your help, occasionally,” he says, finally. “Your terms,
It would sound desperate but his voice has always been like
this, light and lazy and cool. That last sentence was probably a mistake.
Still nothing, and he’s about to
compound his error by speaking again when he hears her take a long breath. She
steps forward till they’re touching and he knows she wants his arms around her,
though she’d never ask. That costs him nothing; he pulls her gently forward and
it’s clear, this close, how hard it’s hit. Her heart is slamming.
Another long, shuddering breath. Come on,
“Later,” she says into his shirt. “Later, okay?” She raises
her head, brushes his mouth with hers.
Again. And harder.
—Anything you want.
Nothing you don’t.
*
He guessed how it would be, her emotions so dense with a
year’s containment that she’s either got to break the dike or switch off
entirely. He tries, at first, simply to absorb what’s pouring out of her but
finds soon enough that her exigency is a fire, as it always has been, and he
burns, of course, as he always does.
She’s still wordless, has never said anything, since that
first time, in all the times they’ve made love. He guesses, now, that she
might, or might want to, but hears only their breathing and the sounds they
make. And now she’s on him, he’s in her, and they move together and she’s so
strong that the surge of her orgasm forces him out of whatever control he had
left—
—Like embracing a bolt of lightning ripping its path to the
ground, always so intense with her but not like this. He wants to close his
eyes as the flash blasts him to dust but she won’t let him this time, holds his
gaze in the soft light, and he gives way all at once, the connection so
profoundly direct he experiences it as injury.
Killing me, he thinks, and hears himself keen like an animal.
—Hello, goodbye. Pleasure, pain—
Perfection, or nothingness?
He reaches for both, refusing the choice. It’s the way he’s
always been.
And for a moment afterward, as always, feeling the
astonishing comfort of their bodies together, adjusting into each other,
shifting minutely till it’s right—for just that long,
he can truly rest, while she touches him gently with her long, strong hands,
and he listens to her breathing slow.
*
She was tired when they started. They both were. They lie
together for a long time and maybe, he thinks, this
time she’ll just give in and sleep, which might mean that he could do the same.
But eventually she moves, and he stares at the ceiling in the near-dark. Stubborn, and he knew it, really.
She struggles out of bed and into her clothes.
“
“Yeah, that’s okay,” pulling the shirt on over her head,
beautiful line from hip to waist to breast, silhouetted briefly, hidden now.
He can think of a dozen ways she might fit into his life,
two dozen, more—she’s slipped the leash, why shouldn’t they run together for
awhile?
—Three dozen ways, if she would consent to any of them, and
why shouldn’t he ask? It’s as good as anything Irina
ever taught him to want.
“
She’s roaming now, always tries to leave her things in a
neat pile—when he’ll let her—but always checks, anyway, to make sure she leaves
nothing behind. She straps the felted sheath around her forearm and that’s
always the last little chore before she goes.
“
She comes to rest briefly at the window, outlined by the
glow there, false neon daylight even through the downpour, and though her face
is blurred in the dimness he knows by now who she is. Who he wants
her to be. Not Irina.
“Thanks. Really.”
Her voice, of course, has always been her own. It’s soft and
almost expressionless, at the moment, and now she’s out the door, and he’s
clear that she’s not coming back. It was too soon to ask. He knew it the instant
the words were out of his mouth.
He hears the rain pound the building and allows himself to
wonder, for a moment, what it would feel like to go after her: find her, stop
her, bring her back.
Hold her still, just once, and ask her what he could
possibly give her, of all the things a man like him might offer, if only she
would stay.
End