— H, you look-What happened to you?
— Chrissie, this is Moira Trevor. Moira, meet Christian Lamontierre.
— The dancer?
Bamber was already on the threshold. -Moira saved my life. Can we come in?
— Saved your…? Of course. Lamontierre stepped back into the small, jewellike entryway. He did so with a grace and power no untrained human being could muster. -Where are my manners? His face was clouded by worry. -Are you two all right? I can call my doctor.
— No doctor, Moira said.
As their host closed the heavy door, Bamber double-locked it.
Seeing this, Lamontierre said, — I think we could use a drink. He gestured, leading the way into a beautifully appointed living room in dove gray and cream. It was a world of calm and elegance. Books on ballet and modern dance were scattered about the coffee table; on shelves were photos of Lamontierre on stage and in informal poses with Martha Graham, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones, and Twyla Tharp, among others.
They sat on gray-and-silver-striped sofas while Lamontierre crossed to a sideboard, then abruptly turned.
— You two look like you need a rest and some food. Why don‘t I toddle on off to the kitchen and make us all something to eat?
Without waiting for a reply, he left them alone, for which Moira was grateful, since she had a number of questions she wanted to ask Bamber without causing him embarrassment.
Bamber was one step ahead of her. Sighing as he leaned back against the sofa, he said, — When I hit my thirties, it began to dawn on me that men weren‘t designed to be monogamous, either physically or emotionally. We were designed to propagate, to continue the species at all costs. Being gay doesn‘t change that biological imperative.
Moira recalled him telling her that he was taking her somewhere even Stevenson hadn‘t known about. -So you‘ve been having an affair with Lamontierre.
— It would‘ve killed Steve to talk about it.
— You mean he knew?
— Steve wasn‘t stupid. And he was intuitive, if not about himself, then about those around him. He might have suspected, or not. I don‘t know. But his self-image wasn‘t the best; he was always concerned that I would leave him. He rose, poured some water for both of them, brought the glasses back, and handed one to her.
— I wouldn‘t have left him, not ever, he said as he sat down.
— I‘m not going to judge you, Moira said.
— No? Then you‘d be the first.
Moira took a long drink of water; she was parched. -Tell me about you and Noah Perlis.
— That fucker. Bamber pulled a face. -A tidy little war, that‘s what Noah wanted from me, something he could tie up in a bow and present as a gift to his client.
— You got paid well enough.
— Don‘t remind me. Bamber drained his glass. -That blood money‘s going straight to AIDS research.
— Back to Noah, Moira said gently.
— Right.
— Please explain the phrase, ‗a tidy little war.‘
At that moment, Lamontierre called to them and they rose wearily, Bamber leading the way down a hall, past a bathroom, and into the kitchen at the rear of the town house. Moira was eager to hear Bamber‘s reply, but her stomach was growling, and in order to regain her strength she knew she needed to get some food in her.
When she‘d been house hunting, Moira had been inside homes like this one. Lamontierre had had a skylight installed, so instead of the dark and gloomy space it must once have been, the kitchen was now bright and cheery. It was painted a rich egg-yolk yellow, with backsplashes behind the umber granite countertops of glass tiles in a complex Byzantine pattern of golds, greens, and blues.
They sat at an antique parquet wood table. Lamontierre had made scrambled eggs with turkey bacon and whole-grain toast. As they ate, he kept stealing worried glances at Bamber because when he asked what had happened Bamber said: — I don‘t want to talk about it. And then because Lamontierre looked hurt, added: — It‘s for your own good, Chrissie, trust me.
— I don‘t know what to say here, Lamontierre said. -Steve‘s death-
— The less said about that the better, Bamber cut in.
— I‘m sorry. That‘s all I was going to say. I‘m sorry.
Bamber finally looked up from his plate and tried for a bleak smile.
— Thank you, Chrissie. I appreciate it. I apologize for being such a godawful shit.
— He‘s been through a lot today, Moira said.
— We both have. Bamber‘s gaze returned to his plate.
Lamontierre looked from one to the other. -Okay, then, I have to practice. He stood up. -If you need me, I‘ll be in the studio downstairs.
— Thanks, Chrissie. Bamber gave him a tender smile. -I‘ll be down in a while.
— Take your time. Lamontierre turned to Moira. -Ms. Trevor.
Then he left the kitchen. They saw he hadn‘t touched his food.
— That went well, Moira said, trying, and failing, to lighten the mood.
Bamber put his head in his hands. -I acted like a total jerk. What‘s happening to me?
— Stress, Moira offered. -And a whole lot of delayed shock. It‘s what happens when you try to stuff two pounds of shit in a one-pound bag.
Bamber laughed briefly, but when he brought his head up, his eyes were enlarged with tears. -What about you? Are car bombs part of your daily routine?
— Frankly, they used to be. Car bombs and so much more.
He stared wide-eyed at her for a moment. -Jesus, what did Noah get me involved in?
— That‘s what I need you to tell me.
— He said he had a client who-he wanted to run reallife scenarios, as close to real-world simulations as possible. I told him there wasn‘t anything on the market that would fit his criteria, but that I could build him a program that could.
— For a fee.
— Of course, for a fee, Bamber said shortly. -I‘m not running a not-forprofit.
Moira wondered why she was being so harsh on him. Fleetingly, she realized that her ill temper had nothing at all to do with Bamber. She had called Dr. Firth in Bali, anxious to talk to Willard for an update on Jason‘s recovery, only to be told that Willard had returned to DC. Firth didn‘t know where Bourne was-or claimed not to, anyway. She‘d tried Bourne‘s cell several times since then, but the call went straight to his voice mail. This made her terribly uneasy, though she tried to calm herself with the thought that if Jason was with Willard he was safe and in good hands.
— Go on, she said now, abruptly ashamed and vowing to be kinder to Bamber.
Bamber rose, collected their plates, and took them to the double sink, where he scraped what was left of the food into the Disposall, then placed plates and silverware into the dishwasher. When he was finished clearing the table, he stood behind his chair, hands wrapped around the top slat of the back, his knuckles standing out starkly. His renewed fear created a circuit of nervous energy he was barely able to contain.
— To be honest, I thought his client wanted to test out a new hedge fund formula. I mean Noah offered so much money, so I thought, what the hell, I‘ll have my fuck-you money in a month or two and then no matter what happens in my business I‘ll have this substantial stash. It‘s tough working freelance, the minute a downturn hits, the business dries up like you wouldn‘t believe.
Moira sat back for a moment. -Didn‘t you know that Noah worked for Black River?
— He presented himself as Noah Petersen. That‘s all I knew.
— You mean you don‘t run ID checks on your clients?
— Not when they deposit two and a half million dollars in my bank account. He shrugged. -Besides, I‘m not the FBI.
Moira could see his point. In any case, she knew firsthand how persuasive Noah could be, how good he was at being someone else. He loved playing roles as much as a Hollywood actor. That way he never had to be himself.
— At any time during the creation of Bardem did you get a hint t
hat the program wasn‘t meant for a hedge fund?
A certain sadness came into Bamber‘s face, and he nodded. -But not until near the end. Not even when Noah gave me instructions from his client for the second revision. He told me I needed to expand the parameters of the reallife data to include government responses to terrorist attacks, military incursions, and the like.
— And that didn‘t set off alarm bells?
Bamber sighed. -Why should it? These factors are important to hedge funds since they would significantly impact the financial markets, and it‘s my understanding that some hedge funds are set up to take advantage of shortterm market dislocations.
— But at some point you came to a different conclusion.
Bamber paced around the kitchen, rearranging items that didn‘t need rearranging. -The anomalies kept piling up with each revision, I can see that quite clearly now. He stopped talking abruptly.
— But at the time? she prompted.
— I kept telling myself everything was okay, he said with a good degree of anguish. -I put my head deeper into the increasingly complex algorithms of Bardem. At night, when doubts began to plague me, I focused on the two and a half mil I‘d put to work in Treasury bills, my fuck-you money. He leaned over the sink, his head down. -Then a couple of days ago I hit a tipping point and I knew I couldn‘t let things go on the way they had been. I didn‘t know what to do.
— So you told Steve about Bardem, and Steve did the search on Noah you‘d failed to perform and discovered that he worked for Black River.
— And Steve being Steve, he couldn‘t sit on the information. He was too frightened to go to his superiors, so he passed a thumb drive on to the man he‘d gone to when his internal search at the DoD turned up nothing on Noah.
— Jay Weston, Moira said. -Of course! I poached Jay from Hobart, another private contractor to the military. He‘d have ID‘d Noah right away.
— And now Steve is dead, Bamber moaned, — because of my stupidity and my greed.
Flushed with rage, Moira got up and crossed the kitchen. -Dammit, Bamber, get a grip on yourself. The last thing I need from you is self-pity.
He turned on her. -What‘s the matter with you, don‘t you have even an ounce of humanity? My partner was just murdered.
— I don‘t have time for sentiment or-
— And if I remember right a friend of yours was blown six ways from Sunday right in front of you. Don‘t you have any remorse, any pity? Is there anything inside you except exacting your revenge on Noah?
— What?
— I mean that‘s it, isn‘t it? That‘s what this is all about-you and Noah at each other‘s throats and never mind the collateral damage. Well, fuck him and fuck you!
As he stalked out of the kitchen Moira grabbed on to the sink in order to keep her feet. All at once the kitchen began to tumble over, she seemed to lose her bearings, to have become unmoored so that she could no longer distinguish the floor from the ceiling.
My God, she thought, what’s happening to me? And immediately an image of Ronnie Hart came to her, those lambent eyes watching her from inside the white Buick, Ronnie knowing the end had come and helpless to stop it. The explosion bloomed again in her mind, blotting out sight, sound, and thought.
Why didn’t I save her? Because there wasn‘t time. Why didn’t I try, anyway?
Again, there was no time and Bamber had grabbed her. Why didn’t I break free?
Because the wall of percussion had already hit her, hurling her backward, and if she had been any closer she would have been caught up in the conflagration, she‘d be dead now or, worse, lying in a burn unit, her skin ripped and charred, covered in third-degree burns that would kill her slowly and painfully.
Still. Ronnie was dead. She had survived. Where was the justice in that?
The rational part of her brain told the grieving, irrational part that the world was chaos, it didn‘t care about justice, which was, in any case, a human concept and, therefore, subject to its own form of irrationality. None of this interior debate could stem the tears that stung her eyes, ran down her cheeks, and set her to shivering as if she were ill.
Bamber‘s words came back to haunt her. Was this what it was all about, a blood feud between her and Noah? All at once she was back in Munich with Bourne, climbing the rolling stairs to the airplane bound to take them to Long Beach, California. Then Noah had appeared in the doorway and she recalled the poisonous look in his eye. Had it been jealousy? She‘d been far too distracted then, far too intent on her immediate goal of getting to Long Beach. But now that curdled expression on his face recurred to her like the acrid taste of spoiled food. How could she be certain she wasn‘t misinterpreting this remembered moment between them? Because, now she thought of it, his reaction to her leaving Black River was personal, as if he were her spurned lover. And so moving on from there, could her decision to start a rival company by poaching a select few of the best people from Black River have been in retaliation for Noah not making a play for her when he could have? All at once, she recalled the conversation she‘d had with Jason that night in Bali when they‘d been alone in the pool together. When she‘d told him of her idea to start a rival company to Black River, he‘d warned her that she would make an enemy of Noah, and he was right. Had he known then how Noah felt about her? And what had she felt about Noah? “I gave up trying to please him six months before I quit Black River. It was a fool’s game,” she‘d told Jason that night. What precisely had she meant by that? Hearing it now reverberate in her mind, mixing with all the other subtle revelations, it sounded like something a hurt lover would say.
God almighty, the collateral damage she and Noah had wrought!
Slowly, like a punctured tire, the unreasoning anger went out of her, her grip loosened, and she slid to the floor. If her back hadn‘t been braced against the wooden cabinets, she would have pitched over.
It seemed a long time later-but surely it couldn‘t have been-when she became aware that somebody was in the kitchen with her. In fact, two somebodies. They were crouched down beside her.
— What happened? Bamber asked. -Are you all right?
— I slipped and fell, that‘s all. Moira‘s eyes were perfectly dry now.
— I‘ll fetch you a brandy. Lamontierre, in a white unitard and ballet slippers, a towel draped around his neck, headed back into the living room.
Moira, shrugging off Bamber‘s proffered hand, levered herself to her feet. Lamontierre returned with a snifter half filled with an amber liquid, some of which she drank immediately. The fire worked its way down her throat and flooded her body, bringing her fully back to herself.
— Mr. Lamontierre, she said, — thank you for your hospitality, but to be honest I need to talk to Mr. Bamber in private.
— Of course. If you‘re all right…
— I am.
— Excellent, then I‘ll go shower. H, if you want to stay here for the time being… He regarded Moira for a moment. -Actually, both of you are welcome here for as long as you need.
— That‘s extremely generous of you, Moira said.
— It‘s nothing. He waved away her words. -I‘m afraid I don‘t have any fresh clothes for you.
Moira laughed. -I can take care of that easily enough.
— Well, then. Lamontierre gave Bamber a brief hug, and left them alone.
— He‘s a good man, Moira said.
— Yes, he is, Bamber acknowledged.
By unspoken mutual consent, they returned to the living room, where they collapsed, exhausted, on the sofas.
— What happens now? Bamber said.
— You help me find out exactly what Noah Perlis is using Bardem for.
— Really? His entire body stiffened. -And how do you propose I do that?
— How about hacking into his computer?
— How easy for both of us that would be! He shifted his position, perching himself on the edge of the cushion. -Unfortunately, it‘s impossible. Noah uses a laptop. I know this because he
has me send the updated versions of Bardem directly to it.
— Ugh! Though Wi-Fi networks were notoriously porous, Black River‘s was not. It had established its own worldwide network that was, as far as she knew, impenetrable. Of course, in theory no network was 100 percent secure, but it might take a platoon of hackers years to get through. Unless…
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