“Thank her for me.”
“You must be looking forward to getting home,” he said.
This confused her, though it shouldn’t have, and she ended up using a cliché to express herself: “I don’t know where home is anymore.”
“It’s with your family,” Sayyid said matter-of-factly. It was so obvious. He frowned at her stupidity.
As she broke through the Boston crowd, it occurred to her that she might have dreamed the boy who had been watching her. That didn’t seem out of order. She turned, scanning the crowd, but he wasn’t there. Had he been, she might have marched over to him and told him that he wasn’t real. No, he wasn’t, but she was. She wanted to tell someone. Someone should know that Sophie Kohl was real now.
When she continued forward, though, she spotted three men in suits walking briskly in her direction. One still wore his sunglasses, while the other two—one young, one old, all three so white that they were pink—homed in on her. “Mrs. Kohl,” said the older one. “I’m sorry—we were running late.”
She stopped, the three men forming an arc around her, just in case she made a run for it. Were they real?
The one who spoke took out an FBI badge. It looked just like the one Michael Khalil had shown her. His name was Wallace Stevens, just like the poet. “When you’re rested, we’d like to ask you some questions. Is that all right?”
Questions. They had questions for her, but standing in the desert, only yesterday morning, she hadn’t had any at all. When she’d looked down at the heavy, sweating man tied to the chair, shaking his head yet smiling, so many questions had been blazing through her, but she’d only asked one: This is him? Omar said yes. Then, like Emmett twenty years ago, resolve took over, and she knew precisely what was required of her. Lips pressed tight together, she raised the gun and fired once. Her ears rang as the man screamed and shivered. She shot him once more and then let the pistol drop into the sand just before she dropped as well, weeping, all control gone. Sayyid helped carry her back to the car.
“Okay,” she said to Wallace Stevens, no more than a whisper.
“We’ve got you a room at the Hyatt. I hope that’s all right.”
It occurred to her that she hadn’t thought to reserve a room. Just getting back had felt like enough.
The one with the sunglasses offered to take her bag, and she let him. As she left the airport with her full contingent and they headed toward a Ford Explorer—black, of course—Wallace Stevens said, “I don’t know if you’ve made plans, but tomorrow, after the interview, we can set you up with a lawyer.”
“Lawyer?” she said. Christ, they already knew how real she was, and she’d just given herself to them! “Why do I need a lawyer?”
“Oh!” Wallace Stevens said, embarrassed. “Not that kind. I mean, an estate lawyer, to discuss your husband’s finances, offer advice. That sort of thing.”
She relaxed, but only a little, for he had to have noticed her panic, and the cop part of his brain must have gleaned that she was covering up something. By morning, she was suddenly sure, she would be in a jail cell.
Yet in the back of the Explorer, he only said, “I forget myself sometimes. You’ve been through a lot. I should have been clearer. I’m just trying to help.”
He reminded her of Gerry Davis. Forward-looking, all about the future. All she wanted was to listen to his soothing voice tell her what tomorrow was going to be like.
Then they were riding down the highway and through busy streets. It was overcast and beautiful in a way that Cairo never could be. It was Emmett’s city, and in this town they had met at a keg party more than twenty years ago, him slender and intense and, almost from the start, completely in love with her. Then they saw the world together.
What else could anyone ask for?
Wallace Stevens noticed her smile. “Something funny?” He asked it in a way that suggested he could use a good joke.
She shook her head, but the smile wouldn’t go away. “Just thinking about my husband.”
“I heard he was a good man.”
“Yes,” she said. “No worse than most good men.”
He rocked his head from side to side, and there was something childlike in that movement, something that made her realize that she could do this. She had murdered a man in the desert, but no one here knew about that. Or if they knew, they didn’t care. They were taking care of a woman who had never stepped foot in America before, and her name was Sofia.
What would Emmett think of this new woman? Would he find her alluring? Would Stan still find her so appetizing? Her poor dead lovers.
She relaxed. Her back and shoulders tingled. Then she began to laugh involuntarily.
“Are you okay?” asked Wallace Stevens. “You need something to drink?”
She shook her head, covering her mouth, the full, sudden release of years of anxiety nearly gutting her, for what was left? Was anything left now that she had followed her life to its inevitable climax?
She looked at Wallace Stevens. He seemed very kind, but what did she know? She said, “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.”
He cracked a smile, bashful, but pleased by the recognition of his namesake.
What was left once it all ended?
Everything.
2
Omar immediately regretted having accepted Harold Wolcott’s suggestion of a meeting in the Marriott’s Garden Promenade restaurant. The busy dinner crowd was noisy, and to his right a big table full of laughing Americans made him long for a quiet rooftop dinner with Fouada. But such were the responsibilities of administration.
Wolcott was in the rear corner, drinking a gin and tonic—Omar knew from the file that it was the man’s only drink—and when they shook hands he felt a thin, sticky layer of moisture on Wolcott’s hand. He’d probably spilled some tonic. Omar ordered coffee.
It had been a day and a half since the execution of Ali Busiri, though in the office they were calling it a disappearance. Without a body, what else could they call it? Central Security agents were turning over stones throughout the city, and when he wasn’t found, probably by Friday, Omar would lead an investigation. This was how it was done, for as the new section head it would be his responsibility to clean up any possible embarrassments from the previous administration. This was also why he had agreed to meet Wolcott.
“They’re a film crew,” Wolcott told him, nodding at the loud Americans. “Scouting locations for some kind of romantic comedy. Exotic location, some big stars, and you’ve got a hit.”
“Good for them,” said Omar.
“Sophie Kohl should be landing about now.”
Omar nodded. Sayyid had helped her onto the plane and phoned in as soon as it took off. “And John Calhoun? How is he?”
“Good,” said Wolcott. “Giving him a few days off, but he’ll be back soon enough. Good guy. I like him.”
Omar had no opinion of the man, but he filed away Wolcott’s opinion; it was inside information. Just as he had filed away Jibril’s precious notebook, though he had no intention of ever using it. This was how he would have to think from now on—collect everything, no matter how insignificant. He would be a hoarder of intelligence, just as Ali Busiri had been. Information was the only true currency, impervious to economic crashes, natural disasters, and even revolution. “Calhoun is a contractor, though. No?”
“Sure. But I think I’ll ask to extend his contract. Not many guys around who know how to keep their mouths shut.”
“It is a valuable talent.”
“Indeed,” Wolcott said. He reached for his cigarettes and offered one—Omar refused—before lighting up. “Are you going to tell me anything, or am I just buying you coffee?”