“Cameron?”
“Hello, Tom. Or should I say Mr. Pruett?” He stepped from the shadows and into the bright kitchen.
Pruett noticed that Cameron had not aged much. He still had an unlined face. The hair looked darker than Pruett remembered, but it was his alright. Pruett held up both arms, palms facing outward. “Look, Cameron I know what you’ve gone through but—”
“Do you?” Cameron kept walking slowly in his direction.
“I don’t think so. I think you have no fucking idea what it’s like to be completely cut off. To be labeled beyond salvage. Beyond salvage! How could you, Tom? After all that we went through together! How could you? Didn’t all those years mean something?”
Cameron got within two feet of him. His burning eyes and contorted face displayed his intentions. Pruett knew he had to act quickly or risk being killed by an operative he himself had helped train. But he was too late.
“Beyond Salvage, you bastard!”
Pruett felt the blow, the powerful palm-strike to his mid-chest area. It sent him crashing against the wall. He slid down and landed on the floor.
“How could you, Tom? Why?”
“Ahgg… my chest, stop, Cameron! No!”
Cameron grabbed Pruett by the lapels, lifted him up, and pressed him against the wall. He let go and Pruett fell to the floor again. Cameron walked to the countertop next to the kitchen sink. A set of steak knives filled a wooden stand. Cameron curled the fingers of his right hand around the handle of one of them and pulled it out of the wooden stand. He turned to Pruett. Emotionless, ice cold.
“I will give you something you failed to provide me with. I will allow you one minute to try and explain to me why you did what you did.” He checked his watch. “One minute. The clock is ticking.”
Pruett continued to massage his bruised sternum as his mind raced through his options. How could he explain what he’d done? Part of him wanted simply to apologize. After all, he no longer was sure the evidence against Cameron was valid. He questioned Higgins’s data, but he knew he could not just come out and say that. That would most certainly make Cameron very suspicious. One moment beyond salvage, the next I welcome him with open arms? No way. Pruett knew Cameron would not buy that for a minute. He decided to play it differently.
“I did what I did for a reason,” he began. “It wasn’t personal. As a matter of fact, whether you believe me or not, it was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. You see, those years did mean something.”
Pruett noted that Cameron’s intelligent brown eyes displayed neither fear nor affection, but he thought he saw a trace of curiosity in them. Pruett continued.
“Evidence was presented to me. I acted accordingly. The reports that I read indicated that you’d killed your case officer and three poli—”
“I was framed! All of that was fabricated to destroy me because of what I know.”
“Prove it.” Pruett noticed a hint of hope in Cameron’s eyes. “Prove it or kill me. If you can prove that to me, then I’ll change the order, but I will not buckle to a corrupt operative. I’d rather die first. It’s your choice.”
Cameron inhaled and exhaled deeply several times. He then threw the knife into the sink and drove a fist into his palm. He looked at Pruett.
“Dammit! I have no physical proof! Just my word and these wounds.” He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. Pruett noticed multiple bruises.
“You could have gotten those anywhere.”
“True, but I got them during my meeting with Potter. I spent most of the time rolling and crawling on the ground. Someone put a bullet through his chest and tried to do me as well, but I managed to escape.”
Pruett frowned and he stared at him. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Because of what I know. Because of what those Athena scientists told me before a group of assassins stormed the warehouse and killed them.”
Pruett inhaled deeply as he remembered the conflict between George’s computer printout and Higgins’s report of the incident.
Cameron exhaled. “All right, Tom. Let me start at the beginning.”
Pruett got up, leaned back against the wall, and continued to message his chest. “Go on, Cameron. I’m listening.”
Cameron cleared his throat and began relating everything he knew, from the initial meeting with Marie Guilloux to what the Athena scientists had told him at the warehouse, to the incidents at the Botanical Gardens and at the airport. His voice was low and calm, his words measured. By the time he finished. Pruett’s eyes were closed in remorse. His mind screamed in its anger at Higgins; his heart ached with grief for young George. The fire in his belly consumed him.
Carrying a small bag of groceries she’d purchased at an open market several blocks back, Marie Guilloux approached her hotel wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt underneath a leather jacket. Although she seemed physically calm, her mind was in chaos. It was eight in the morning. Fourteen hours and still no news from Cameron. Where are you, Cameron? Did you make it out of Paris? Did you reach help? Damn!
Her thoughts were interrupted when she spotted three men wearing overcoats following her. Where did they come from? She quickened her pace and the men did likewise. Marie dropped the grocery bag and raced for her hotel. Two other men, also wearing overcoats, now stood by the entrance to the building. They started walking in her direction. She stopped and glanced back. The three men ran toward her. One of them held an ID up in the air.
“Mrs. Guilloux?”
As the men got closer Marie recognized the ID. CIA! They’ve captured Cameron and now they’re coming for me!
Instinctively, she broke into a run across the street. The CIA men raced after her.
“Please! Stop! You don’t understand!” she heard one of them scream, but all her mind saw were images of the assassins chasing Cameron by the river.
The morning’s cool air filled her lungs as she ran over the soft lawn of a narrow stretch of grass on the other side of the street. Her legs ached, but she kept on, taking in deep breaths as the patch of grass turned into a small park. The trees to either side of her melted into a wall of green as she tried to increase the gap, but she was getting weak, light-headed. She didn’t have the conditioning to keep her current pace for much longer. She had to slow down…
Suddenly, a strong hand gripped her from behind and pulled her down and behind a line of bushes next to the trees. Marie viciously kicked her legs as her left hand unsuccessfully tried to reach behind her and grab her attacker: a clump of hair, an ear, perhaps scratch his face, throat… anything. But her attacker kept one hand tightly fixed around her mouth and another one holding a lock on her right arm.
In full rage, Marie felt the strong arms turning her around.
Animals! You’re all a bunch of animals!
She pulled her right arm loose and tried to scratch him across his throat, but her clumsy move was effectively blocked by a fast forearm. Still light-headed from the short but exhausting run, and ignoring whatever it was the CIA man was saying, Marie continued trying to kick and punch the operative, who easily blocked all of her blows.