“They asked about Dr. Talcott and Nate Andros and… and Rabbi Handalman. They did not ask about you.”
“That’s good, Anatoli; that’s just fine. What did they say about what happened in the clearing that night?’
A shudder went through Anatoli as the battle for sanity lost ground in his eyes. “Lights, noise. They keep asking. They ask if I saw… if Dr. Talcott had something in her hand, did something. I… pretend to be crazy.” Anatoli smiled a sad, tremulous smile, as if to say, Who’s kidding who?
“Have you overheard their conversations? Do you know—”
There was only a few seconds’ warning. Anatoli stiffened and shoved Denton’s hands away. He dropped down onto the bed just as the door to the hall opened. There was no time to run back to the safety of the trees. Denton could only duck down under the window and flatten himself against the side of the house. He looked down and saw his long knees poking out, visible to anyone who might look out the window. He swiveled to tuck them against the wall.
“What the fuck?” he heard a masculine voice inside the room—annoyed.
“What’re you trying to do, old man?” came a deeper voice—both men were in the room. “Suicide by hypothermia? It’s fucking ten degrees out there.”
Denton heard the sound of someone trying to close the window… and apparently not succeeding. He froze, waiting.
He should have shut the damn window. Was opening the window even possible from inside the room with those two-by-fours in place? Were the DoD agents figuring that out right about now?
As if confirming his worst fears, he heard one of the men say, very low, “Go check outside.”
Denton felt a moment of panic. He very nearly jumped to his feet and took off across the backyard, even though he knew that the men at the window would see him for sure. But he held his ground, trying to think of another option. Then he heard Anatoli’s voice, thin and wavery: “Can I have some tea?”
“Let go,” came the younger man’s voice, quick, impatient.
“But I need some tea!”
And then an exclamation of utter disgust. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ!”
Denton couldn’t figure out what had happened at first, only that Anatoli was trying to divert the men—and apparently succeeding.
“Davis! Goddamn it! Pick him up and get him to the bathroom, would ya?”
A smell wafted through the window and hit Denton’s nose—acrid and pungent.
Denton grinned, chalking up a couple of points for the old fox. He crept along the side of the wall and around the house where he could make a dash for the trees.
Nate bought a ticket at the gate and entered the large fenced grounds of the Holocaust museum. It was a crisp winter day and the sun was shining. He stood there looking over the original barracks and parade ground, the bare earth frosty in the cold and cleared of anything green. Everything was silent and still. It was a mausoleum that hinted at horrors only because of what one knew had happened here. Otherwise, it was just a bunch of crappy-looking old barracks.
But he did know. And the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Jesus, the human race was just weird to preserve stuff like this.
The man Nate was following, Mr. Smith, was playing tourist. It wasn’t difficult to keep an eye on him as he strolled around the grounds and in and out of barracks. It was a low-key kind of day and there were probably fewer than a dozen tourists around. Nate didn’t seem to attract any more attention from Mr. Smith than the rest of them.
Smith headed into a long building that was the museum proper, and after a couple of minutes Nate idled in after him. He was wearing an old parka and a woolen hat. He tried to keep his face mostly averted, afraid that if Smith got a good look at him he would be recognized. The Mossad guy Nate had conked over the head in Seattle might have described him, and if they’d dug into Jill’s background they might have his picture and his name.
Mr. Smith strolled among the exhibits, giving Nate time to think. Normally, he would have been quite interested in the exhibits, but today he had other things on his mind.
Jill. Damn her for what she was putting him through. He had never been in love before. It was crazy how it opened a hole inside you. All he could think about was wanting a lifetime with her, some place of their own, cozy evenings of talk and hugging, work they both cared about, nights of exploring each other’s bodies with unselfconscious enthusiasm.
It was insane. No wonder so few philosophers tackled the whole mating instinct—it was completely irrational. But man, when it grabbed you… Knowing she was out there, in danger, and not going after her was like holding his hand on a chopping block. It was exactly that hard.
The thing that really worried him was that despite Jill’s claim that Farris wouldn’t hurt her, he was pretty sure she would have gone, danger or no, that she was willing to risk her life because she thought everything was her fault. She’d had that Passover lamb look in her eye. And all he could do was wait to hear if she was alive or dead or what.
Damn, he’d lost sight of Smith. Nate hurried through the museum, but the man was gone. He went outside just in time to see Smith disappear around some buildings on the far side of the camp. Nate ran to catch up. From the side of the crematorium he watched Smith look around and then climb through a hole in the fence.
Nate was pretty sure Smith was going to Anatoli’s house. He took his time following, circling around, approaching from the north. The woods beyond the fence were not entirely familiar. He’d only been through them a couple of times and he was no Daniel Boone. But through luck or instinct he reached Anatoli’s house the way he’d intended.
He found Denton crouched behind a large group of boulders about where they’d agreed to meet. He had his mittened hands tucked under his armpits for warmth. His face was red from the cold. Nate crouched down beside him and peeked over the boulders through the trees. Smith was there all right. He was four or five hundred yards away at the edge of the woods closest to the camp, watching the house through binoculars. Denton nodded, acknowledging the man’s presence.
“Did you talk to Anatoli?” Nate asked in a low voice.
Denton nodded and filled him in. “How do they know about Handalman?” Denton whispered.
“Probably because he and I traveled with Jill.”
“Oh, right. That’s good. So the DoD probably doesn’t know about the manuscript.”
“Let’s hope.”
They crouched there in the cold woods and waited. Hannah had been sure the Mossad agents were going to try to get into the house today, and Mr. Smith’s presence indicated something was going down.
It didn’t take long for his partner to show up. The woman Nate and Denton had seen with Mr. Smith at the inn soon came walking down the road, hobbling on a broken boot heel. She looked like a refugee from a fashion ad, with a faux leopard coat, tight black leggings, and high black boots. Her hair was as tall as a soufflé and her makeup was discernible at ninety paces.
“Hooker du jour,” Denton whispered.
Nate agreed, though he thought she was just tasteful enough to appeal to a couple of alpha males.
“Bet her car broke down,” Denton suggested, clearly enjoying this. “And she’ll need to use their phone.” He used Hannah’s binocs on the woman.
Nate thought that likely. He was worried about what the woman had in the large black leather purse she had looped over her shoulder. Although Hannah had been sure the katsa and Mr. Smith had been discussing getting into the house, she hadn’t managed to hear them say what they planned to do there. Nate hoped they weren’t going to bug the place. If they did, they might overhear information about his and Jill’s work, and that would be bad.
The woman disappeared around the front of the house. Denton handed the binoculars to Nate for a turn. Nate poked his head up over the boulder to see what Mr. Smith was up to. He was still just inside the edge of the woods, his own binoculars trained on the house. Nate turned in that direction himself.