“And this is what Werner was selling to Al-Marwan?”
“That’s what we were hearing.”
“So the Americans sent me down to Werner’s Casbah to steal the Monet back. Only something happened to me before I could deliver the goods, and now no one, not even me, knows what I’ve done with them?”
Brian got up from the chair and walked to the room’s only window. “You’ve got it half right,” he said quietly. His back was to me, his arm resting on the plaster sill. Down below us, in the street, a woman laughed, the sound fading with the dopplered rattle of a scooter.
“What do you mean, half right?”
“It wasn’t the Americans,” he said. “It wasn’t the Americans who sent you.”
“But I worked for them,” I protested. “You said I worked for them.”
Brian shook his head. “Not this time.”
I caught my breath and held it. I had known this, I thought, that night in Joshi’s apartment, and before that, in the piracetam nightmares. This thing I didn’t want to believe.
“Who, then?” I asked.
“We don’t know,” Brian said. “At least I don’t know. There are more than a few people who would want that information, and none of them are our friends.”
“But why… why would I?”
Brian shrugged. “There are so many reasons, aren’t there? Money, power.” He turned to face me. “What do you think?”
“And last year?” I asked, ignoring his question. “In Burgundy? What happened?”
“We were trying to stop you,” he said. “It shouldn’t have happened the way it did.”
“You mean I shouldn’t have lived, or you should have made sure I had what you were looking for before you shot me?”
Brian shook his head. “No,” he stammered, but it was a futile denial.
“And Pat? Not your brother, I assume.”
“Pat worked for All Join Hands just like he told you. His work for us was purely incidental, mostly a matter of keeping his eyes and ears open.”
“And what did he get in return?”
“As you already guessed, our boy had a gambling problem. We helped him out with his debts.”
“And Hannah? Was that just a matter of keeping his eyes and ears open, too?” I thought about the picture Pat had taken of me on the train, the dreamy pleasure of it. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”
Brian didn’t answer.
“You came for me at the Casbah,” I asked, after a long silence. “Why?”
“We need you to remember,” he said. “We need you to remember what you did with the plans you stole from Werner. We need to find them before anyone else does.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said.
Brian thought for a moment. “When they found you in Burgundy, did you have anything with you? It could be something small, even, a piece of jewelry, a pen.”
I shook my head. “The only thing I had in my pockets besides lint was that old ferry ticket.”
“Do you still have it?”
I thought about my pack at the Hotel Ali. “Maybe,” I said. “I left it in my backpack, in the hotel lockers in Marrakech.”
“You need to rest for a while longer,” Brian said. “Then we’ll go together.”
He got up and came toward me. For a second I thought he was going to move to kiss me, but he stopped at the end of the bed and stood there stiffly, as if unsure of himself, unsure of me.
“You’ve known all along that Pat was dead, haven’t you?” I asked.
“We know what everyone else does, that he disappeared on that trip to Ourzazate. Beyond that, all we can do is guess.”
“And your best guess?”
“Someone killed him.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer, but when he looked down at me I could tell exactly what he was thinking, that it was Hannah who’d gone to Ourzazate with Pat, that only Hannah had come back.
“Who am I?” I asked. “Who was I before Hannah Boyle? Before Leila Brightman and the others?”
Brian shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But someone does.”
“Yes,” he said. “Now get some sleep.” Then he turned, walked to the door, and was gone.
I finished the harira and sipped at the water, then sank back into the pillows, trying to sift through the grains of Brian’s story. If what he’d said was true, Werner had been right. I was a traitor and worse. Pat Haverman was dead because of me, dead on a Casbah rooftop, and I was the one who’d killed him. But why? There are so many reasons, Brian had said. Still, something didn’t quite add up. I could have sworn it. Somewhere there was a flaw, a crack in Brian’s story, invisible as the tiniest hair of a break in an uncut gem. This wasn’t the person I had been; it couldn’t be.
I closed my eyes and willed myself to dream. Something small, I told myself, a neat little package for carrying information. But what I dreamed of was not the thing I hoped to remember. Instead, I was back at Werner’s Casbah, back in the palmeraie. It was nighttime again, the sky black above me. I was alone, wrapped in a burnoose and running, only this time I ran toward the Casbah instead of away from it, my boots snapping dry palm fronds as I barreled along.
Then, suddenly, I was inside, deep in the Casbah’s heart. I was in an office, Werner’s, I thought, breathing in the stench of expensive leather and cigars. I stopped for a moment, straining to hear over the silence, listening for the slightest movement above or below, a sleepwalker, someone wakened from a nightmare, but there was nothing. I crossed to Werner’s computer and turned it on. The screen was blindingly bright.
I slipped something into my burnoose, then left the office and headed down the stairs, into the first-floor passageway, toward the door I knew led out into the palmeraie. This is it, I thought, hesitating a moment in the open doorway before stepping outside. This short dash across the drive the most vulnerable part of my journey. The wind had kicked up, and the palms rustled violently against each other. I looked out from beneath the hood of my burnoose, scanning the dark landscape, making sure I was alone; then I stepped outside.
But I had not looked carefully enough. As I emerged from the portal, I saw a figure slip from the shadows along the Casbah’s outer wall. A man’s voice called out, not unfriendly at first, a comrade out for a smoke. I stopped and watched the figure step toward me, the lit coal of a cigarette glowing at his side. Then the man spoke again, only a few meters away now, his voice moving toward irritation. I nodded, trying to think of a way out, coming up with only one. He took another step forward and tossed his cigarette aside. Run, I told myself, scrabbling across the drive, plunging into the palmeraie.
“Sheffar!” the man cried behind me, and I could hear other voices now. Thief.
I picked up the hem of the burnoose and ran as fast as I could, weaving my way through the graceful forest, the palms lithe and supple as the legs of ballerinas. Someone was shooting. A palm trunk splintered. The ground in front of me erupted, spitting dirt and small stones. Then suddenly, I was on the road. A Jeep came careening down the two dry ruts.
“Get in!” Pat Haverman yelled, slowing just enough for me to hurl myself head first into the passenger seat.
I righted myself and peered back into the woods. The moon was a perfect half circle, a bright wedge climbing up through the clear sky. It cast just enough light for me to make out the half dozen figures sprinting toward us through the date palms. Another shot sounded, and the Jeep swerved, then corrected itself. I looked over and saw Pat holding his hand to his abdomen.
“I’m okay,” he said, but I could tell he wasn’t.
We drove with the lights off, bouncing along the dirt track until we reached a better-maintained dirt road and, finally, a paved two-lane strip.