“Spoken like a true modern assassin. But I can tell you this, for as many chances as I’ve had to kill you, I did not arrange that explosion under your apartment. That bookstore was my safe house, the place where I would meet up with Graham. He was angry that I stole Grace. It wasn’t supposed to play out like that. But then, how else could I avenge what you did to my son? An eye for an eye. That’s the way I thought it through. But I never had any intention of killing her. Just scaring her. Scaring you.”
“But Lowrance died. Was that intentional?”
“Lowrance had no idea who Graham was,” he says. “The memories had yet to come back to him. I led Graham to believe I had no idea who he was either. He worked with me because he knew I wanted to get to you. That I wanted revenge. He wanted me to kill you, even made arrangements so I could kill you.”
“But you didn’t. You simply stole Grace.”
“And all three of us combat brothers were nearly killed in that explosion.” He exhales. “We have something in common now, Captain, besides being trained assassins. I am partially blinded for life.”
The knifepoint presses against my neck once more, a droplet of blood running down my neck.
“Are you going to kill me now? Did you kill my Grace?”
It’s only the pain I fear. The first few slices of the neck. Until the jugular is severed. Nothing more. I want to die now. If he has cut Grace and allowed her life to bleed out, then I too want to die. What more can he do to me, now that Grace is dead?
“I know now there is no bringing my son back to me, Captain. There is no way to replace him, any more than we can rebuild the old stone walls of the houses in my village, any more than we can return the blood to the bodies of my people and your soldiers. Any more than we can forget about Operation Perfect Concussion. It is over now. All I want to do is return to my country to live out my days.”
Maybe I deserve to die for what I did to him. To his little boy. I prepare for the sharp slice, to feel the warm blood running down my neck, but instead, he pulls the knife from my flesh and I hear him shuffling across the room.
“I will tell you what I will do on behalf of my Aziz,” he says. “I am going to enact the rule of law from your own Christian Bible. I am going to take an eye for an eye. When Grace’s eyes are plucked from her head, and your blind eyes are plucked from yours, you will both see the light of God.”
I scream as I listen to him grab hold of Grace. She struggles, and although she is gagged I can make out her terrified shrieks. There is a violent pounding, like he has picked her up and tossed her on her back.
“Be still,” he says, like a father trying to put an agitated child down to bed. “Be still, please, be still.”
In my head I see the tip of that blade entering her eye socket, and like St. Lucy centuries before, the first of her two eyes being plucked out. Rage courses through my veins. Rage and adrenaline. The life returns to my limbs. Forcing myself up onto my knees, I launch myself at his body, thrust him onto his back. I can’t see in which hand he holds the blade, but I manage to grab both his wrists, which I slam against the gravel-packed floor while head butting him in the face. The blade comes free of his grip, and I feel his lips explode, his nose break, and his front teeth scar my forehead before they break inside his mouth. He screams something from deep within his black soul.
“Aziz!” he screams, the word mixing with the soup of blood and mucus that now surely fills his mouth. “Aziz!”
Then, the sound of footsteps, heavy and rapid. Two or three bodies descending the stairs. The door slams open, as if it’s been punched by a battering ram.
Men enter the room.
Soldiers. Police. I know them without having to see them.
The sound of hobnailed boots slapping against stone and hard-packed dirt floor.
Orders shouted. Assault rifles shouldered. Rounds chambered. Suddenly a bright white light shines in my face. I sense the light in my open eyes despite the blindness. It’s so bright it makes me want to close them. I release Hakeemullah and thrust myself backward. I know without having to see him that, despite his wounds, he’s once more snatched up his blade.
Three sharp shots ring out, reverberate against the stone walls.
Blood spatter slaps my face.
His body drops like a heavy sack of rags and bones.
I kneel motionless while someone approaches me and, in perfect English, asks me if I’ve been hurt. Another soldier shouts out the same words. “Are you hurt?” But they are not directed at me. They are meant for Grace.
“Grace,” I say, the word barely coming out. “Grace . . . Grace.”
“She is okay, Captain. Do you understand me? She is alive and unhurt.” I know the voice. It’s spoken with a heavy Italian accent. Detective Carbone.
I feel a great wave of something wash over me then. It engulfs me and fills my veins with a relief so profound, I’m not sure I can speak another word. I drop onto my side, open my eyes wide, and wish only to see Grace again.
And then it comes back to me, like a light switch turned on inside my brain. My vision. Blinking my eyes rapidly, I see Grace, see that she’s alive. I see Carbone, standing in the center of the room, a semiautomatic gripped in his hand. I see two more soldiers outfitted with black ballistic gear and gripping automatic rifles. I see Hakeemullah lying on his back, the hole in his forehead bleeding crimson arterial blood.
I also see one more man.
David Graham.
Chapter 73
Graham has switched up his diplomatic suit and tie for military greens, over which he wears a military-style, multi-pocketed utility vest. A mode of dress he is not entirely unfamiliar with, it turns out. I pull myself up off the floor, one eye on Carbone, and the other on Graham.
“You’re not a diplomat,” I say. “And you never worked at the embassy.”
“Captain Angel,” Carbone interjects, “perhaps I should explain something—”
“Shut up,” I say, my eyes shifting to Grace, who peers at me from behind the two nameless soldiers. “You don’t have to explain. Graham here is running the show and always did run the show. Isn’t that right, Agent Graham?”
Graham takes on one of his smiles.
“Captain Angel,” he says. “Look on the bright side. You have your fiancée back. You have life and what’s even better is you have your memory back. How wonderful is that?”
“That bookstore was my safe house, the place where I would meet up with Graham. He was angry that I stole Grace. It wasn’t supposed to play out like that.”
“I have my life because you fucked up. When I didn’t kill Hakeemullah in his village, you made it possible for him to follow me. What you didn’t plan on was his refusal to assassinate me right away. It’s true, he made me suffer, but I think in the end, he might never have killed me or Grace. He was still a killer, but he’d also become a human being again, just like I was becoming human. Just like Lowrance would one day become human again, had he been allowed to live.”
“This is quite the crazy plot you’ve cooked up here, Captain.” He laughs. “Clearly you need rest. You’re suffering from acute PTSD. You need immediate hospitalization.”
“Really? I’m crazy? How did Hakeemullah get that cell phone? How did he get the number to the apartment? How is it he had a key and always knew where to find me? How is it I even managed to get to Venice? You worked it out so that he would get to me no matter what. You’ve been pulling the strings all along because you need to erase your past. Your illegal CIA operation. The best way to do that was to get all three of us to kill one another, and when that didn’t work, you set the bomb.”
“This is absurd. The words of a crazy man. Arrest him before he does damage to himself and others.”
When Carbone makes no move, Graham turns to him.
Carbone looks at me, then at Grace. Finally, he says, “Arrest him on what grounds, Mr. Graham?”
“Because you know what can happen should you disobey my directive.”
Carbone nods.
“Okay,” he says, “I’ve accepted a few bribes in my long career. Maybe it will mean the abrupt end of my work, but I tell you this, Mr. Graham, this man and his fiancée have been through hell. I will not arrest him.”
Graham turns toward the two soldiers. “Apprehend this man!” he shouts. “That is a direct order.”
But the soldiers do nothing.
Reaching inside his jacket, Graham pulls out his sidearm. He aims the barrel at my face.
“Nick!” Grace screams.
“Put the gun down, Graham,” Carbone says. “You have no right.”
“No right?” Graham says. “Captain Angel is US government property. In the event that the property becomes a danger to himself and others, it’s my duty to neutralize him.”
He thumbs the hammer back, takes a step forward so that the barrel is almost pressed up against my forehead.
“Graham!” Carbone shouts.
“No, Nick, no!” Grace shrieks.
The two soldiers lunge forward at the same time the trigger is pulled.
Chapter 74
I’m down on my back again before I realize the trigger that was pulled was not Graham’s, but Carbone’s. He stands beside the faux diplomat, shaking his head, a nearly invisible trail of smoke rising up from the barrel on his gun.
Graham has dropped his semiautomatic, and now his hands are raised up over his head, so high they nearly touch the low ceiling of timbers and heavy wood planks. I’d like to think Carbone’s warning shot put the fear of God into Graham, but you’d have to be human for fear to have any effect on you in the first place. Graham simply dropped his piece because that’s the way he chose to play it. The Venice police wouldn’t be arresting an American CIA agent. And as for the explosion that killed Lowrance? That was still going to go down as a terrorist attack.
Graham lowers his hands, looks me in the eyes. “Once you’re in, there’s only one way out. That’s the way it works. That’s what you signed on for.”
Turning, he heads for the exit.
“I was retired yesterday, Graham,” I call out. “Today, I’m even more retired.”
But he takes the stairs without saying another word, as if he hasn’t heard me.
Grace rushes to me, and as I get back up on my feet I take her in my arms and hold her so tightly, I feel I might break her.
“You’re okay, my love,” I say. “You’re going to be okay.”
She sobs, her tears running down my cheeks and hers.
“How could I ever die on you?” she says. “I’m your state of Grace, after all.”
We hold one another for a long moment, until we turn to Carbone as he bends at the knees, retrieves Graham’s weapon.
“In all my years of police work,” he says in his rich raspy voice, “I never once shot a man. Not . . . once.” Standing, he slips the automatic into his jacket pocket. “I’m happy that my streak continues.”
“Killing is a terrible business,” I say. “Take it from one who knows.”
“It’s too bad that it has to be a business,” he says.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say.
He pulls his eyes away from the body, nods, and pats the pockets on his suit jacket.
“Damn,” he says. “Out of cigarettes once again.”
“Come on,” I say, “I’ll buy you a pack back in Venice.”
We head for the stairs. But before I take them, I turn to gaze once more at Hakeemullah. The look on his face is not pain. It is not sadness, nor surprise. It is peace. Perhaps what they say about heaven is true and he is now back with his boy. Like life, nothing in death is guaranteed. But it helps to believe that one day, men like Hakeemullah and me will be forgiven.
Chapter 75
Grace and I have been transferred to the same Venice hospital where Hakeemullah snatched me up four days ago. Now that many of my memories have finally come out from behind the shadows, I don’t seem to be having any more problems with the hysterical blindness. But then, not all of the memories have revealed themselves, and only time will tell when it comes to regaining 20/20 vision 24/7.
Grace shares the bed beside me and she continues to sleep off the effects of her prolonged nightmare. Other than the frightening situation Hakeemullah put her through, she’s unhurt and unwounded. But she does bear the scars of her emotional struggle. In the end, what happened in Venice was not motivated by war, or the bombing of a village, or even the CIA’s illegal Operation Perfect Concussion. It was motivated by the loss of Hakeemullah’s child. In the end, my old friend lost his life and perhaps that’s the way he wanted it. To lose his earthly life and spend eternity in paradise with his beloved Aziz.
“Feel this one,” my fiancée tells me a week later. Her voice is insistent yet light and happy. I make out the sounds of many voices, the clatter of plates on the metal tables, the clinking of wineglasses, the unhurried laughs of the lovers and friends who come to this caffè to fall in love, or fall in love again.
I hold out my hand, palm up. Grace sets something inside it.
“Now, don’t cheat,” she insists.
My eyes are already closed. But I try to shut them tighter. As if it’s possible for my lids to come down any harder than they already have. I close up the fingers on my hand, make a fist around the object.
“Well,” Grace says, “let’s have it.”
I feel a solid metal band. It’s cold in my warm palm. There’s no stone attached to it. It’s just a plain ring.
“Couldn’t you come up with something harder than this, Gracie?” I say, not without a laugh.
“Really see it,” she says.
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. How can you? Your eyes are closed.”
“That they are. But you wouldn’t believe what I see when my eyes are closed.”
“What do you see?”
“You, me, in bed. The windows open, the breeze blowing on our pale skin.”
“You can open them now, Romeo. Or should I say, Casanova?”
I do it. I also open my hand and reveal a gold band. A wedding band. My eyes fill.
“Go ahead,” Grace whispers, her voice choking. “Read the inscription.”
I hold the ring up to my face so that I can read what’s been inscribed in the band’s interior. I see, My Love. My Life. My Heart.
“It’s too early to wear this.”
Grace reaches across the table, takes hold of my free hand, squeezes it.
“You’ve earned the right. We. Us. We’ve earned the right to be married before a priest or a judge tells us it’s so. Screw the rules.”
“I guess we’ve always been married. Even when we were apart.”
Grace exhales a breath, and once more paints a smile on her face. This smile is different. It carries with it a different message.
“Now feel this, Captain,” she says, once more reaching out for my hand. “Gently,” she adds, placing my hand on her flat belly. “What do you feel?”
Blood fills my face. Warm blood. I feel Grace and what might someday grow inside my Grace.
“I’m home, Gracie,” I whisper. “I’m finally home and healing.”
We sit like that for a while. In silence. Not needing to speak. Needing only to feel one another’s hands. One another’s presence. One another’s heartbeats. We don’t dare release our hold on one another. Not even to steal a drink of our wine.
“Are you ever going to open the envelope Detective Carbone gave you yesterday after he took our final statements?”
It begins to rain.
“Methinks soon . . . But not yet, me lady.”
I can hear the sound of the raindrops falling on the canvas awning above us, and against the stone cobbles of the square. I imagine the heavy raindrops making thousan
ds of small splashes and explosions in the water that’s collected in the stone fountain across the way.
“You were with her, weren’t you?” Grace says after a time. “When Karen died.”
Inhale. Exhale. “Yes.”
“Why did it take you so long to tell the truth about it?”
“I’ve always been telling the truth about it. I just haven’t been telling the whole story. It’s possible I just didn’t want to remember everything. Remember what happened that day when our car ran off the bridge.”
“Was it really a suicide?”
“I think she could have gotten out. But she didn’t even try. When I tried to save her, she wouldn’t move. She just kept staring at me, like that was what she wanted. But there was only so much air, only so much time. In the end, I saved myself. I put it all out of my mind for a long, long time. Now I remember everything.”
“Do you think if you hadn’t become a part of that CIA project soon after, you would have remembered everything?”
“Forget the bad. That’s part of what the project was all about. Selective amnesia. For a long time, I packed up the memory of Karen’s death, stuffed it inside a drawer.”
Grace gives my hand a little squeeze, stares down at the table.
“And you forgive me? For what happened with Andrew?”
“Some things are better off forgotten.”
Another squeeze. She looks up again.
“Tell me now,” she says. “Are you or are you not going back?”
Flashing inside my brain, the image of a hill in a valley surrounded by crystal-clear blue sky. The sound of screaming jet engines breaking the silence. Then two explosions that rattle the earth. I see myself climbing the hill only to come upon a little boy. If I had my way, I would erase it from my memory bank forever. But I can’t. It’s impossible to erase all the memories. Erase them forever. You can only create new memories while trying to put the old ones behind you.
“I’m making my own separate peace now,” I say after a slow beat. “My wars are over. I can give you that. I want to give you that, Grace. I want to give our own Dear One that. When the time comes.”
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