“Hey,” the guy called out. “On your left!”
Meyer chuckled to himself. This guy was going to pass him. He considered racing, but then thought it would be more fun to watch the old man stroke out farther up the beach. He moved a half step right into the moist sand.
He felt the sting in his hip at the same moment the guy ran past.
A wasp, maybe.
He stopped to check, suddenly feeling light-headed. He looked out at the ocean, then at the old man who’d gone by, trying to get his bearings.
The man slowed and turned around to trot back, looking winded, but not nearly as winded as he’d sounded earlier.
“You okay?” he said. “You don’t look so good.”
Meyer found it difficult to open his mouth, like his jaw was locked. He fell sideways, smashing into the sand, paralyzed.
The old fellow squatted down beside him.
Meyer wanted to asked him if they’d met, but no words would come out.
The old man gave a slow shake of his head. “Relax, Tim,” he said. “That was a shot of succinylcholine I gave you. Quite a bit, actually, because there was no way I was going to hit a vein on the run like that. It works a little slower in the muscle. Metabolizes quickly. Won’t be any trace of it by the time they get you on a slab. I’d explain it all to you, but there’s no need. I’m sure you already know why I’m here.”
Meyer managed a small groan. Other than that, he couldn’t even close his eyes. It was painless, but absolutely terrifying.
“Anyway,” the old man said, giving him a friendly little pat on the shoulder before he stood up and walked away.
Jack Ryan, Jr., wanted to take the elevator, but Lisanne insisted on the stairs. She’d lost an arm, she reminded him, not her leg — and even then she’d have wanted to take the stairs as well, thank you very much.
Ryan could hear the chatter up above. The smell of lamb in the shepherd’s pie made his mouth water.
He smiled at Lisanne as they turned at the landing to start up again, taking it slow. It had been only a couple months. She was pale, sweating a little on that beautiful upper lip of hers. By all rights, she should have been dead. And she would have been, had she not had her spleen removed after a horseback-riding accident as a teenager. With no spleen to catch them, the bullets had proceeded through her body without clipping any major arteries but for the one in her arm. Adara had saved her life there, no question about it.
“You nervous?” Ryan said.
Lisanne looked at him with a mock scoff. “Why would I be nervous? Because this is our first date?”
“Not that,” Ryan said as they topped the stairs and made the corner into the West Sitting Hall.
Cathy Ryan met them at the door to the private dining room, across from the master residence. She was dressed in jeans and a USMC sweatshirt, a dish towel thrown cavalierly over her shoulder. Ryan’s old man came out behind her, carrying a copy of The Wall Street Journal.
“Mom, Dad,” Ryan said. “I want to introduce you to Lisanne Robertson. A good friend from work.”