"I would have run screaming," I admitted.
"Yes."
I put my utensils down and looked at the bare bones on my plate. "Why me? You've certainly encountered other PSAs."
"None that I respect." She drank some water, gauging my reaction. From what she saw, she felt the need to clarify. "You beat me. No one has ever done that before."
"I didn't beat you."
"My job was to kill Pugh. I failed."
"I was lucky and I was working with people who were outstanding at their jobs," I said. "What you're asking me to do, you're asking me to do alone. You, of all people, should know what that means."
"You're forgetting that I will be your principal. Pugh could not fire a gun, Lady Ainsley-Hunter could not rig an explosive. Pugh was an old man, diabetic and possibly alcoholic. Ainsley-Hunter is an activist, a public figure and a zealot. I am a thirty-one-year-old woman in excellent physical condition, mentally acute and – despite what you would care to believe – emotionally stable."
I hated the fact that I was actually considering what she was saying. I hated it even more that, once again, she knew what I was thinking.
"There is more," she said. "No one you have ever protected before can teach you what I can teach you, Atticus. I can teach you everything Oxford knows, because I know it, too."
"You're offering to turn me into an assassin?"
"I'm offering to show you how we work, how we think. How we see the world. How we see ourselves." She looked at me across the table. "There's something else. You need to do this."
I didn't quite laugh, but it came close to an outright snort. If I'd had water in my mouth, she'd have gotten an impromptu shower.
"You are losing yourself," Alena said softly. "Fame does not suit you. It is distracting to you, and perhaps even offensive. The money is nice, it allows you comforts, allows you to provide for Erika and even Logan…"
"Logan makes a fine living without my help."
She blinked at me, waiting to see if I was finished, then continued. "It allows you to provide for Erika, but that is not enough for you. It has allowed you to meet those people who, culturally, you have been told it is desirable to know, women like Skye Van Brandt. But your association with people like Van Brandt has not made you happy. It has, in fact, made you weak."
"Hold on…"
"Last year would what I did in the elevator a week ago have worked? Last year, given the same situation, would you have debussed your principal to a publicly known location after an attempt had been made?"
"The 'attempt' was a man playing with himself."
"That should not have mattered in the slightest," she said, annoyed with me.
I drank water and didn't say anything.
"The man who beat me a year ago never would have made that mistake."
I set the glass down empty. It wasn't actually made of glass, but instead a clear molded plastic, light blue. Hers was from the same set, but pale green. "Then why would you want to hire that man?"
"You are also the man who put himself between an Accuracy International AWM and Ainsley-Hunter, and then demanded to see his principal safely to the car. You are the man who bid his principal goodbye, and then came to meet me, believing that his life was a fair trade for hers. You are the man I want to protect me."
"Her life was worth saving."
Now it was her turn to drink water and not respond.
I shook my head and looked off the patio. The breeze was moving palm fronds and branches, as if they were waving me either to come closer, or to make a discreet exit. It was getting warmer as the day progressed, but in the shade of the patio, surrounded by the concrete and tile, it remained comfortable.
"You killed three men in Dallas, Texas, ten days ago," I said. "Video surveillance caught you leaving the scene."
"No I didn't." She said it with conviction and almost surprise.
"There were pictures, Alena. Three men – Ortez, Montrose, and a third whose name I don't remember. All had been shot. There was a picture of you leaving, driving a car out the gate."
"It was not me. The photograph was a fake."
"Sure."
"I have not been to Dallas in over three years. Who showed you these pictures?"
"It's not important."
"I did not do it."
I looked at the trees some more, felt her looking at me. I said, "Tell me about Oxford."
"He is like me."
"Another Russian?"
"No, American, I think. Maybe British. I'm not certain who trained him, but he is from the West. What little I know about him suggests a military and intelligence background."
"I heard he specializes."
"Scandal," she confirmed. "He uses sex, it is the way he stages his bodies. But it means nothing, it is simply a kind of job, one that takes its own special planning, the way a bombing or a poisoning takes special planning. He knows what I know."
I had to wonder about that. It could be as simple and straightforward as she made it sound, staging bodies the way other people move their furniture. But I doubted it. Someone who kept returning to the sex angle was probably someone who liked playing with naked bodies. Maybe Drama wasn't a monster, but I wasn't willing to extend the same faith to Oxford.
"Is there a history between you two?" I asked.
"No."
"And you're sure he's coming after you? You've confirmed that?"
"Yes. I have sources."
"Sources like Dan?"
"My sources say Oxford is looking for me. I take that kind of threat seriously, so I checked."
"But you don't know who bought the hit?"
"No."
"And you're sure it has been bought, that he's not doing this on his own?"
"Oxford would not undertake such an operation for free. Pro bono, as you say. To kill me, he would demand a substantial payment."
"How much?"
"Four million dollars, at least. More, perhaps."
"How long has he had the contract? Or whatever it is you folks call it."
"Job. I call it a job. Just as you call it."
I was silent.
She took a green orange from the bowl at the center of the table and began peeling the skin. The bowl was white porcelain, with two thin, sky blue stripes running around its center. "He has had the job only a month or two."
"If he was in New York looking for you, he knew you were in the U.S. That means he's close."
"New York is a clearinghouse." She was removing the skin from the orange as a single piece, using only her fingers, trying to keep it from tearing. "It is the place to acquire everything, from equipment to people. Everyone goes through there. New York means nothing."
"Does he know about this place?"
She hesitated.
"Does he?"
"He knows about the connection between you and me, about Pugh. I'm certain he's read Havel's book." She looked up from her work with the orange. "It will take him some time, but he will find me here."
"How much time?"
She finished removing the skin, coiling it on her empty plate. She offered me a wedge of the orange, and when I shook my head, ate it herself, her eyes wandering to the water. She was quiet long enough for "Girl" to end, and John and Paul's harmony on "I'm Looking Through You" to begin, and it was clear she was thinking about it, considering how she would search if the positions were reversed.
"At least three months," she said, finally. "Possibly four. Maybe longer. I do not think any less – he would have to have extraordinary luck. It will cost him a lot of money. He will start by establishing what occurred between you and me and Ainsley-Hunter, then attempt to recreate your route. He will try to track the equipment I used. The rifle would be the weakest link, and with time, it would lead him to Brighton Beach. There he will learn about the Scarab, and he will know we took the boat. He will calculate the range of the vessel, and then he will begin a methodical search of all those places where we made landfall, where we refueled. He will lose us for a while once he reaches the Caribbean. He will have to move from island to island, carefully, because he will believe he is close, and he will not want to show himself. It will take him at least six weeks before he narrows his search to the Lesser Grenadines. He will lose us again at Kingstown, realizing that was where we left the Scarab. It will take him at least another week before he reaches Bequia.