‘Oh, you think I can’t cope?’ Nina snarled. ‘I’m not some hard-assed special forces soldier, so I deal with my traumas by hiding them away as if they don’t exist? Screw you, Eddie! You of all people should know what I’ve been through, but if your idea of help is telling me I ought to just get over myself, then I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to be in the same building as you!’ She whirled and stalked out of the study.
Eddie followed. ‘Nina, I’m sorry — I could have put that a bit better—’
‘No shit!’ She snatched up her jacket.
‘Where’re you going?’
‘Out!’ she yelled, opening the apartment door. ‘You were moaning about me not leaving the house for days, so you’ll get to cross one thing off your list of complaints. I’m going down to Little Italy for the festival. I’ll see you later.’
‘Nina!’
She waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder, not looking back as she exited. ‘Give Natalia my regards,’ she said, letting the door swing shut behind her with a bang.
‘Buggeration and fuckery,’ Eddie muttered. He considered catching up with his wife, but decided — drawing on experience — to give her time to cool down first. Instead, he took a cab to the airport, initially still fuming before eventually calming down. If nothing else, the argument had encouraged Nina to go out and actually do something rather than just sit at her computer working on the book. Neither the circumstances nor the timing was ideal — he wouldn’t have minded going to an Italian food festival himself — but it was a start. And now that the subject of Nina’s denial about Macy had been brought into the open, maybe she would think about it instead of trying to avoid it.
He arrived at the terminal and headed for the arrivals gate, seeing on the information board that Natalia’s flight had landed not long before. Even so, it still took more than half an hour for her to finally appear; it was her first visit to the United States, forcing her to go through the rigmarole of biometric scanning before being allowed to exit. ‘Natalia!’ he called, waving.
Natalia Pöltl gave him a wide smile. The young German had changed in appearance since their last meeting, finally returning home after eight years of self-imposed exile in Vietnam. Her hair was now cut short and styled, and returning to a Western diet had fleshed out her figure. Eddie could still see a weariness beyond her age in her face, though. The former aid worker had endured a nightmarish experience, kidnapped by forces from both Russia and the US seeking to obtain the genetic secrets locked in her DNA — those of a biological agent that was slowly killing her.
Nina had been infected by the same substance. But she had found a cure — and now Natalia could share it, ending the threat once and for all.
‘Eddie!’ she replied, hurrying to meet him. They embraced, and she kissed him on the cheek. ‘It is so good to see you again!’
‘You too. How’ve you been?’
‘As good as I can be,’ she replied, expression turning downcast. ‘More tumours have appeared. The illness is getting worse.’
‘Well, we’ve got something that’ll fix that, I hope. But what’s it been like finally going home? How’s your dad?’
‘My father, he is…’ She paused to find the right English word. ‘He was overjoyed when I came back to Hamburg. He had thought I was dead. When I first telephoned him, he was almost angry because he thought someone was playing a cruel joke on him. But,’ she smiled at the memory, ‘he soon became happy when he realised it really was me.’
‘And nobody’s been following you?’ Everyone involved directly with Natalia’s kidnapping — on both sides — was now dead, but there was a chance that others might be continuing their work.
‘Not that I have seen. I have done what you said, and watched for people. And I have not spoken about the eitr to anyone, not even my father — especially not on the telephone.’ The deadly toxin had been a formative part of Norse legend: eitr, a primordial poison from the depths of the earth.
‘Good. Better to be safe, eh?’ He looked down at her luggage; she had only one bag. ‘Is that everything?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘I lived in a village in Vietnam for eight years. I realised I do not need many possessions.’
‘Same here. I always travel light if I can. Learned that in the army — the less you have to lug about with you, the better. Here, I’ll take that.’ He picked up the bag. ‘Okay, we’ll get a taxi.’
Natalia shook her head. ‘No, no, that will be expensive. We can take the… it is called the subway in New York, yes?’
It was his turn to smile. ‘Yeah, it is — but we won’t be taking it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it doesn’t come to JFK.’
She blinked in disbelief. ‘But this is the biggest airport. How can there not be a train to the city?’
‘Welcome to America!’ he said with a laugh. ‘Come on. Let’s find a cab.’
Mulberry Street in Little Italy was the home of New York’s annual Feast of San Gennaro. Nina had barely started along it before her mouth started watering. Both sides of the thoroughfare were lined with food stalls, selling anything that could even remotely be considered Italian, and quite a lot that couldn’t. She absorbed the delicious aromas as she ambled through the crowd. The cravings from the early stages of her pregnancy had died down as she entered the second trimester, but right now she had a definite urge to grab a plate and start eating.
A pang of regret as she saw chocolate gelato on a nearby stall; it was one of Eddie’s favourites. She wished that he was there with her, but at the same time she still felt a residual anger. She had attended Macy’s funeral, mourned her friend, wept for her; she wasn’t in denial. He was making assumptions based on her book — her unfinished book, at that. She wasn’t in denial.
Was she?
‘Get yer calzone!’ shouted a stallholder right beside her, jolting her back into the moment. ‘Hey, lady? You wanna calzone? Funnel cake?’
‘I’d love one, but… I probably shouldn’t. I’m pregnant,’ she told him with regret.
He gave her a cheeky grin. ‘Hey, I got four kids. My wife never stopped eatin’ my food the whole time. C’mon, babies need calories.’
Nina laughed. ‘Okay, you convinced me. Give me a ham and pecorino.’ He beamed and reached for one of the stuffed dough crescents.
The blond man who had followed her from the apartment and on the subway journey to Little Italy stopped twenty feet behind her, pretending to check the produce on another stall. The moment she left with her purchase, he set off again too, trailing her through the crowd.
Natalia’s face was practically pressed against the cab’s window as she gawped at the towering skyline of Manhattan. ‘Wow!’ she gasped. ‘That is so incredible!’
‘It’s a bit bigger than Ly Quang, innit?’ said Eddie, remembering her little Vietnamese hideout. They were crossing the East River on the Queensboro Bridge, giving them a spectacular view of the island. He pointed at a tall green glass tower on the far bank. ‘That’s the United Nations, where me and Nina used to work. Thought I was shot of it, but we got dragged back to the International Heritage Agency a few months ago. Although if we hadn’t been,’ he admitted, ‘we wouldn’t have found the cure for what Nina had — what you’ve got.’