And she was up for it, oh yeah.
Her constant dizziness was gone, as if it had never been. Though she’d twice escaped attempted murder, though the trip up through to Canada, then on to Paris, Lungi Airport, then Laka, had been long and wearying, she wasn’t tired. She felt… strong. Energized. Clear-headed.
She was back.
Claire saw clearly what had to be done, and the steps to be taken. It was as if someone had given her her mind back, her ability to reason things through, to analyze situations and decide on the next step.
“First off,” she said, “I want to talk to Marie Diur’s mother and sister.”
Dan didn’t hesitate a second. “Then let’s go.”
CHAPTER 17
The one thing about walking around a city that looked like the set of the Night of the Living Dead was that it was easy to check whether you’re being followed.
Dan was really good at counter-surveillance, and he’d have bet that they weren’t being followed. He was betting, with the most precious currency he had—Claire’s life.
If he had had any feeling that they were being tagged, he’d have aborted the mission, no question.
And Claire would have followed his lead instantly, no question. She was good with strategy, he was good with tactics. Being with Claire on a mission felt like… like dancing with a superb partner. Their movements meshed, each willing to give the other primacy where their talents were strongest.
It was teamwork at its finest, and he hadn’t had that since he’d retired from the Marines.
Except in the Corps—though his fellow soldiers had been good men in a fight, they were also smelly and with skin like leather. They were called Leathernecks for a reason.
Man, being on an op with a partner who was the most beautiful woman in the world, with eyes that could make you drown in them and a mouth that made you whimper… that was the best.
Dan didn’t know what the future would hold. He didn’t even know if they had a future. Something powerful was arrayed against them and there was no knowing if they would come out on top. But he knew, like he knew right from wrong, that whatever time was allotted to him on this earth, he wanted it to be with Claire by his side. As his partner in all ways.
She tugged on his arm. “In here.”
They’d been walking through the Citè Administrative, built by the French in the 19th Century for the managers of the companies running the gold and diamond mines. Though the stucco mansions were dilapidated and were often home to multiple families, they still held a residual grace and beauty.
Claire led them through a rusted but graceful wrought-iron gate that was unlatched, and down a brick path that was almost completely overgrown with banana trees and huge palm trees at least a century old. The fronds overhead were so thick they blotted out the sun. Claire followed the path around the back and stopped before a solid door painted bright blue.
It looked completely deserted. Nothing moved in the hot, still air, except for the buzzing of insects in the lushly overgrown garden.
There were no signs of human habitation, no sounds of people, no kids running around. Dan remembered that a year ago, the streets had been knee-deep in lively, chocolate-colored kids getting into all kinds of trouble. But right now, there was only the buzz of insects and underneath that, silence.
If the Diur family had moved, he and Claire were in deepest shit. This was the only part of town that actually had streets and street addresses. If the Diur family had uprooted and gone to the center of Laka, with its twisting streets and dense population, they’d never find them.
Or if they’d moved out of Laka, or worse, been killed, they’d travelled halfway around the world only to butt up against a dead end.
Claire walked up to the bright blue door, with peeling paint and splits in the wood, and knocked loudly. “Hello?” she called out. Only the bees answered.
After five minutes of knocking, Claire went further along the back of the house, feeling for something with her fingers. She gave a little hum of pleasure and held up a key.
“Claire…” he said, putting a warning in his voice.
She smiled angelically. “What?” Just as she was fitting the key to the door, it opened. A very beautiful, middle-aged African woman stood on the doorstep.
“You. What do you want?” she asked, her voice cold and abrupt.
But Claire had already put her arms around the woman’s slender waist and was hugging her, murmuring something soft in French. The woman frowned, features drawn in pain. At first she stood stiffly in Claire’s embrace, then she broke down and hugged Claire back, dropping her face to Claire’s shoulder.
When they broke apart, both women had wet eyes. Mrs. Diur looked around carefully and tugged Claire inside. Dan followed, eyes sharp.
Inside, the house was dark and clean, but looked empty, as if nobody lived there. Mrs. Diur led them down a dark narrow corridor running through the entire house, to a living room that gave out on to the street. The curtains were drawn and there was a hush in the air.
They sat down, the two women together on a small sofa, Dan in an armchair at right angles. He kept his right hand free, ready to draw. There was a feeling here he didn’t like. He didn’t know if it was the generally eerie vibe Laka was giving off or this empty house. Whatever. If there was going to be trouble, he was going to be ready for it.
Claire kept her voice low, starting to speak French, then with a quick glance at Dan, she switched to English. Ordinarily he would have been happy to have her speak whatever language she wanted to put the woman at ease, but he had to understand what was being said.
Mrs. Diur spoke English with a heavy French accent. “What are you doing here, Claire? I was told you were badly injured.”
“Yes, I was,” Claire said softly. “I don’t remember anything about that day, maman. I wasn’t even capable of talking on the phone until last February. I called here and left a message. Aba called my father’s home while I was in a coma.” Claire closed her eyes briefly. She was pale again, almost as pale as when Dan had seen her in his office. Man, he didn’t ever want to see her that color again, and yet here it was. Whatever it was she was remembering, it was painful. “Aba was… angry, maman. And I don’t know why. She said… she said Marie was killed because of me. Because of something I’d done.” The tears were back in her eyes and her face was drawn. The pale slender hands holding onto Mrs. Diur’s black ones were white-knuckled with tension. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I would never have hurt Marie, never. I loved her like a sister. I miss her.”
“I miss her, too,” the woman said simply. “Is that why you have come back to Makongo, ma chére? To discover why Marie died? To make—how would you say it?—to make amends?”
Claire released a hand to swipe at her eyes. “I don’t know how to make amends for something I don’t remember doing. I’m here—" She looked swiftly at Dan, then back at the woman. “We’re here because someone is after me, and I have a feeling in my gut that the answer lies here, in Laka. In what happened a year ago.”
The woman reared back. “After you? What do you mean?”
“There have been two attempts on my life,” Claire said simply. “We have no idea why.”
Mrs. Diur frowned. Her dark features were refined, with high cheekbones and a full mouth. She had to be nearing fifty, but she was still a beautiful woman. Dan remembered that her daughter, Marie, had been beautiful, too.
“What makes you think the answer lies here?” Mrs. Diur looked around at her darkened living room, with its empty, deserted air, and Dan knew she was also talking about the city outside, just as empty and deserted.
Claire blew out a frustrated breath. “A feeling. I can’t explain it much better than that. But it’s a strong feeling. And the fact that the bombing in Laka is a huge hole in my head, in my life. I don’t remember any of it. Maybe if I filled in the blanks, I could understand what is happening. So I ask you, maman. What happened that day? Do you remember? All I know is
that Marie came back to the Embassy and called me to come with her. I was with this man.” Claire pointed at him. “He was the head of the Embassy guards. He said Marie came to get me and that we both disappeared and then there was the blast. Why? Why did Marie come back to the Embassy when there was practically a war outside? It must have taken her at least an hour to get to the Embassy, trying to avoid the soldiers shooting in the streets.”
“We begged her not to go.” Mrs. Diur’s eyes welled. A tear tracked down over a high cheekbone and dropped to her lap. She didn’t wipe it away. “Aba fought with her, tried to physically restrain her. But Marie was convinced that you were in danger, and she wanted to get you out of the Embassy. She knew you were working that day.” Her huge dark eyes burned with emotion. “Marie loved you almost as much as she loved Aba. There was nothing we could say. In the end, she simply ran out the door.”
Claire was crying too, now.
“Oh God. She should have just waited for the Red Army’s troops to wear themselves out. I was safe there in the Embassy. Or at least we thought we were. Who would have thought the Red Army would blow the Embassy up?”
Mrs. Diur sat up straight, wiping her eyes. “But ma chére. That’s the point. That’s why Marie wanted you out of there. Those weren’t Red Army soldiers shooting in the streets.”
“What?” Dan spoke for the first time. “If it wasn’t the Red Army, then who was it?”
“Mbutu’s men. We recognized them. Their plan all along was to bomb the Embassy and blame the Red Army. It worked, too. Mbutu was able to portray himself as the enemy of terrorists, the friend of America. And anyone who knew, or who said anything, they had them killed. My husband published an article on the Red Army, on how they weren’t capable of trying to take over Laka and certainly weren’t capable of bombing the Embassy. He was obsessed with trying to find out who had killed Marie.” Her voice turned harsh, bitter. “A month after the bombing, masked gunmen came to our house and dragged him away. I never saw him again.”
“Maman,” Claire murmured, and placed her hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry. And Aba? What happened to her?”
The woman swiped at her face again, but the tears were rolling down her face now. “Aba’s husband was killed, too. She shut up. What else could she do? She works at a hospital, the Hôpital Génerale de la Charitè. She’s very agitated about something, but she won’t tell me. But there’s something going on that is tearing her in two.”
Suddenly she turned her head, staring blindly out the window, tears shiny against her dark skin. “Go away,” she said dully, without turning her head. “Please, Claire, if you ever felt something for us, go away now and never come back.”
Claire was shaken when she left Maman Diur’s house.
So much had changed, so very much had been lost. When she’d frequented the house as Marie’s friend, it had been filled with music and laughter and superb food.
Mr. Diur had been a university lecturer, and there had always been students and other professors hanging around. And Aba’s doctor friends, cynical and dedicated. And Marie’s friends, who loved music and art.
There’d been good-natured arguing, teasing, friendliness, a sense of family. Claire had been considered a third daughter, and she’d simply lapped it up. An only child, growing up in a household grieving for her lost mother, she’d been used to the quiet of loneliness.
Though her father had never forbidden her to bring her friends home, she could tell he didn’t enjoy noise and confusion, so she just grew into the habit of stopping friendships at the door.
Not that there had been that many. Claire had been a studious girl, from a sad home. It had turned out to be easier to just close herself away with her books and her computer.
Marie’s home had been an eye-opener, and she simply dove in happily, soaking up the chaotic and cultured atmosphere, full of noise and laughter and arguments and delightful food and unquestioning friendship.
All lost, forever gone. The Diur home now was even sadder than her own in Safety Harbour, because its walls had once held happiness and companionship. Hers never had, and now, never would
They were walking along the street, Dan helping her to navigate around the cracked pavement of the sidewalk because she was lost in space. Last year, it had been a well-maintained street, full of traffic, people strolling in the evenings on the smooth asphalt. Now it looked like it had survived a war.
Maybe it had.
Dan was not only helping her navigate the cracks and holes, he was watching the street and the houses, vigilant and prepared. He had his left arm around her, right loose, ready to reach for a weapon. Just like a Marine. Trusting in God and firepower.
Claire wasn’t any help at all, she was still stunned by what she’d heard, and stumbled along, impervious to the outside world.
She stopped and Dan stopped, too, eyes roaming expertly along the tops of the buildings.
She wasn’t doing any good here, dazed and sad. She had to regroup.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” she said.
Dan nodded.
Richmond, Virginia
It was on the op-ed page of the Richmond Times Dispatch. An eloquent plea for a new morality in politics, decrying the decadent spectacle of Senator Neff’s insalubrious private life, calling upon men and women of good will outside the usual sphere of politics to come to the aid of democracy in the grand old state of Virginia.
The long article was signed by Concerned Citizens for Democracy, and mentioned a number of prestigious men and women who might be drafted in to serve out Senator Neff’s term. Judges, doctors, a famous journalist. But it mentioned his name twice. In two days’ time a similar article would be published, mentioning only his name.
The $300,000 to set up the Concerned Citizens had been money well spent. It was starting to create an air of inevitability around his candidacy.
It was perfect. Just absolutely perfect. It was working out even better than he’d hoped.
The teaser postings on the more tabloidy political blogs had raised a firestorm. The blogosphere was going wild, inflamed postings raging in a viral whirlwind. The timeline was even tighter than he had anticipated.
Things were moving fast and he calculated that the full-blown scandal—spread out on the front pages of the press from coast to coast—could break in less than twenty-four hours.
The first photograph—the face artfully pixilated—was moving its way fast up the food chain, in an explosive upward spiral. Already he could read in the latest postings from the three most respected political bloggers a Breaking news alert. One of the bloggers used to work for the New York Times and the other for the Washington Post, and they still had low friends in high places. Once the blogosphere was talking openly about it, the ball would be passed to the online magazines, then the print magazines and newspapers.
That’s when the second and third photos would go out. And the only pixilated thing on the photos would be the tranny’s woodie, though anyone over twelve would understand what it was. Old Neff’s face with its unmistakeable shock of thick white hair and spa ruddiness was instantly recognizable.
Those photos wouldn’t make it to the mainstream press, but verbal descriptions of them would. And there would be at least ten million hits on the photos.
Allow a day for another media feeding frenzy and the videos would be released. The howls for Neff’s resignation would start immediately.
And there Bowen was, an independent who could lean either way, with fabulous Washington connections, and a reputation for philanthropy. Ready and willing to be drafted.
He could feel the power of it tingling through his body from fingertips to toes. It was always this way, always had been, since he was a boy. He’d felt fate tugging him in its wake. He’d planned things out, he’d seen the way things had to go, and by God, they did. Every single damned time.
He never told anyone—certainly not his whey-faced idiot wife, who was a mistake he was going to have to correct very soon, but h
e knew—knew—that he was destined for greatness. He’d known all his life. He’d had a sense of destiny since he’d been a boy, and nothing in his life had ever contradicted that.
It was as if he could see more, see better than others. Perceive the movements of destiny and move in the direction of history, rather than cross-current to it, as so many did. Destiny was like a raging river that trammelled most people, dragging them under. But not him. He rode the crest, always had, always would.
He could see his destiny, feel it, taste it, even smell it. It smelled of lemon polish and expensive cologne and brand-new cashmere and crisp hundred-dollar bills.
It wasn’t just the money, though, it was the power. Power should be in the hands of men like him. Men who bestrode the world, men who understood its ways, men who saw the future and made it happen.
First the Senate, sponsoring a few big bills, known for being a man who got along, but also known as a man who could make things happen. He was an expert on foreign affairs. He had the CIA and NSA and the top elements of Homeland Security behind him. He had a shitload of money behind him, a pipeline of money pumping from Africa straight to him.
He’d make a perfect Vice Presidential candidate for the next electoral cycle. And while he was Vice President, well… accidents could happen.
Because the world was a terrible, treacherous place. No one knew that better than him. No one knew what hidden dangers there were. No one knew better than him how utterly ignorant and clueless the current class of leaders was. Three times in the past year, disaster had been averted only thanks to some behind-the-scenes manoeuvring by the CIA. The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had nearly created an international incident last year, endangering American interests abroad, and he’d done so out of sheer, bone-deep ignorance.
The Chairman had deserved the heart attack he’d been given and America had dodged a bullet.
It was time for the pros to take charge, and he was ready and able. There were a lot of men in the top echelons of spookdom who knew what he knew—America was teetering on the edge of the abyss. One tiny push and she’d go over. America needed him, and by God, he was ready.
Maverick Page 25