He did not have time to consider this strange turn of events. She began pulling him back toward the bed, her movements soft but insistent. In that moment, he knew, with abrupt and complete certainty, that he would never get the truth from her. He would never know what had produced her, what pushed her forward; her mind and her past were equally inaccessible. But as trying as that knowledge was, for the moment, it didn’t matter at all.
Her hands slipped behind her back, and her bra fell to the floor. Vanderveen pressed her down to the covers and lowered his head to her bare skin.
When he woke, it seemed as though hours had passed, but a quick glance at the bedside clock told him he’d been asleep for less than an hour. He lay back for several minutes, letting his eyes adjust to the dark. Then he sat up quietly and looked around the room. Raseen was sitting next to the window, a threadbare blanket wrapped round her bare shoulders. She’d pulled the curtains back; as a car passed in the street below, the headlights flickered over her strong features, momentarily brightening her dark brown eyes. Sensing his attention, she half-turned to smile in his direction.
“You’re awake.”
Vanderveen sat up and leaned against the headboard, running a hand over his eyes. “Yes.”
She stood and walked back to the bed. She curled up next to him and rested her head on his shoulder, still wrapped in the blanket, as though guarding her virtue. He wrapped his left arm around her and pulled her close.
“Can’t you sleep?” he asked.
“No.”
Strange, but the single word was answer enough. They sat in silence for minutes on end. He wondered if she ever experienced remorse for her actions, but he could not ask the question. Nor would he have trusted her answer. Finally, she pressed her lips to his ear and said, “I saw you on the phone, you know. Who were you talking to?”
He hesitated, and she locked on to it immediately. “We’re in this together, Will. You must learn to trust me if we are to succeed.”
Trust. It was a hell of a thing to expect, considering what she had just done. Still, she had a point.
He had asked her to join him, not the other way round. If he couldn’t trust her, she had already outlived her usefulness. And yet, for all of her skills, she was beyond his experience and, therefore, beyond his control. It was the one fact he could not set aside. He thought about it for a few minutes more, weighing the options. She remained silent, awaiting his decision. Finally, he began to talk softly.
He told her everything. He started with that day on the Syrian coast, all the way through to his work for Iran and al-Qaeda. He told her about the failed assassination of the U.S. president one year prior. Finally, he told her about Kealey and the threat that the man now posed.
“I brought it on myself,” he said when he was finished. “I killed five of his soldiers, five men he was responsible for. Five of his friends. Then, seven years later, I killed his woman right in front of him. He has every reason to want me dead.”
She shifted against him, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Perhaps so, but that’s in the past and can’t be helped. The question is, what will you do now?”
Vanderveen smiled into the dark. “He’s close to Rühmann. Once he tracks him down, Kealey will come to Europe himself; he won’t trust anyone else with something of this importance.”
“And we’ll be waiting,” Raseen said.
“Yes,” Vanderveen replied. “We’ll be waiting.”
“And in the meantime?”
“We meet the man our employers have sent. He arrives in London tomorrow afternoon.”
CHAPTER 29
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The streets of Washington, D.C., were not as empty as Naomi would have expected at 4:00 AM.
They had passed a number of vehicles en route to the Palisades, a wealthy residential area that stood out in the city, even amidst the redbrick opulence of Georgetown. Their route had taken them past the closed roads surrounding the White House, through Foggy Bottom and the river mist hanging over the Potomac. Shortly after they entered Arlington County, the lights of the States Naval Observatory appeared in the distance, glistening eerily in the damp morning air.
Naomi took M Street off Pennsylvania, then swung a right onto Wisconsin Avenue, the wheel shimmying slightly beneath her fingers. The car was dark blue, a late-model Taurus with tinted windows, new tires, and Virginia plates. The vehicle looked modest enough, right down to the surface rust, but things were not as they seemed. A standard check through the DMV would lead the police to a crumbling brownstone in downtown Richmond, and the engine compartment contained a block that was far more powerful than the standard 3.0 liter V6.
The car, which had been discreetly pulled from the Agency’s motor pool, was Harper’s final —and most dangerous — contribution to their unauthorized task. With enough work, Kharmai felt sure that the paper pushers at Langley could trace the car back to the DDO, but she was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. With any luck, they’d have it back in the pool before the workday began.
She lowered the window slightly and checked the clock in the dashboard, wondering how long they had before sunrise. She was guessing it was at least three hours, which was more than enough time, assuming everything went according to plan. And that, she thought wryly, was a very large assumption.
Kealey had been checking his equipment and murmuring directions since they’d left the hotel.
She didn’t need his help, but she was too keyed up, too involved in her own thoughts, to point this out. Her nervousness was a source of lingering irritation, and it didn’t make sense; she’d felt fine when they were poring over the embassy blueprints. Of course, that had been in the safety of a warm, brightly lit hotel room. Now reality was starting to sink in, and for the first time, she realized how much she was actually risking. If anything went wrong, her career at the Agency would almost certainly be over. The thought made her stomach contract into a tight, queasy ball, but she shook her head unconsciously and steeled herself. She’d made her decision, knew it was right, and she’d stand by her choice, regardless of the consequences.
Kealey looked up from what he was doing to issue instructions, but she beat him to it, swinging a sharp left onto Reservoir Road. The Taurus coasted along for a few minutes more, gliding into the suburb of Senate Heights. Naomi pulled off to the side of the road and doused the headlights.
The car was completely dark inside; Kealey had already removed the interior bulb.
He opened the door as soon as the vehicle stopped, swinging his legs out to the pavement. At the same time, he hooked the earpiece into its proper position. They’d tested the radios at the hotel earlier. Naomi had driven the Taurus east on Pennsylvania, transmitting periodically back to Kealey’s room on the fifth floor. The Motorola XTS 2500 operated in the same high-frequency range as television and FM radio broadcasts; as a result, she grew tired of driving around the city long before noticing a meaningful drop in the audio quality. She had programmed the radios herself and felt sure they would perform as expected.
Kealey turned back to her as she was slipping her earpiece into position. She met his unflinching gaze and resisted the urge to look away.