by Dorian Paul
"Has the party been cancelled, then?"
"No. Why should the children suffer as I do? This is their time to be happy. They will know the grief of life soon enough."
"With all due respect, sir, you must be aware Omar Messina remains a threat. And with the King's children present –"
"Mr. Tiger, no one inside this house is unknown to us."
Had the killing of Varat completely destroyed his instincts? His arduous walk to the Governor's mansion may have been folly, and at this moment he wanted more than anything to lean against the courtyard wall. And yet . . . "Tell me about the party," he insisted. "Has your staff prepared the food?"
"Yes, most definitely. Sweets the children don't need."
"And entertainment?"
"Of course." The small curl of the Governor's lips showed a growing impatience. "Games, a clown, balloons . . ."
Damn, this North African sun was hot.
"Mr. Tiger?"
The guards rushed him as he reached for the Governor's outstretched hand. But his real fear was that he might lose consciousness before uttering his thoughts.
"Do not let the children near the clown. Tivaz TB . . . mixed with the helium to blow up the balloons . . ."
***
He heard and felt himself groan. Still alive . . . though Claire wasn't. He attempted to lift his hand to his forehead, but the tug of an IV line held it back and his eyes opened to a roomful of blurry men. "Am I still at the Governor's?"
"Yes," someone said. "Your wounds have been dressed and you've been given blood."
"What about the clown? The children?"
"Conserve your energy."
Was that the Governor speaking?
"I have news from your office."
Yes, the voice belonged to the Governor. "No, please tell me first – was the clown Messina?"
"Mr. Tiger –"
"Was it Messina?" he thundered. North African etiquette be damned. "Was it he?"
"Praise Allah you are not hunting me. Yes. Omar Messina was the clown."
He slumped back and closed his eyes. "The balloons?"
"He had yet to fill them. We have the canister."
"Send it to Cl –" He caught himself before saying her name aloud. "To our lab in London."
"Already I have spoken to James Warner and Bobby Keane."
"Messina. Where is he?"
"In our custody."
"We must find out if anything else is planned today."
"The interrogation is underway."
And with the King's children the target of the plot, there was no doubt Messina would be interrogated to the full extent.
"We shall discover what can be learned from Messina."
"Scientists must debrief him also." If Claire were alive, that's what she'd want. "I insist upon it."
"All in due time."
It was as much as he could expect from a sovereign nation, and as good as he would get. Everything else, James and Bobby could handle. He was down to the one thing he alone must do in Morocco, retrieve the body of his loved one and take her home. "Can you provide me with a car?"
"Of course, but you must permit me to convey the news from your office."
Right, news of his father. When he returned to London he would move forward to assume the responsibilities of the family estate as he had promised. But only after he brought Claire's body home.
"He survived?"
"Amazing."
So the miracle of Western medicine might appear to the Governor, but the odds were in his father's favor. Stents were routine these days and his father relatively young and fit.
"Yes, she has survived."
She? The Governor's English was too accomplished to confuse pronouns. Still he refused to give voice to his hope. "You refer to my father?"
"No. To your colleague Dr. Ashe."
Chapter 47
He must be hallucinating. Still dizzy, he forced himself to focus on the Governor's face. "Claire is alive," he said to reaffirm he'd heard properly.
"Yes, Mr. Tiger. She is alive and well."
Then somehow she'd survived the plant explosion. He had to see her, to tell her he loved her. He started to rise, but the IV line tangled.
The doctor pressed his shoulders down. "It is necessary for you to rest."
"I must go to her."
He tried to leave his bed once more, and this time the Governor held him down as well. "The doctor is correct. You've lost much blood."
"It matters not. I must go to her."
"But I will have a phone brought so you can speak to her."
It wouldn't do. What if she were still angry with him? "Not a phone. I require a car."
"That is unwise."
"Then I shall walk." And not stop until he met her face-to-face and spoke the words he'd kept to himself far too long.
***
"I am in top form," his father reported.
"A relief to hear it, sir." He glanced out the window of the Governor's limo, hoping he'd find Claire in equally good spirits, most especially once she saw him.
"The stent averted a heart attack. Absolutely not necessary for you to rush back on my account."
"I would have thought your solicitor waited bedside with papers for me to sign," he said, only half-joking.
"I assure you, dear boy, I did not stage this event to capture your attention."
But his father had done exactly that. And now he wondered if he were as prepared to shoulder family responsibilities in penance for Jeremy and Claire's believed death as he imagined earlier. And if he asked Claire to join him in that family life and she refused – what then?
"However, an event such as this affords an opportunity for me to contemplate the brevity of life, David. There's much to be gained from sowing wild oats whilst young."
Now he truly had to be hallucinating. "Sir?"
"I am not unacquainted with the impulse to kick up one's heels. I was a bit of a hellion in my own day."
Was his father offering him a way out?
"The crisis here is ended, son. Tend to your duties. Mr. Hitchens can be dealt with as your schedule permits."
"I have every intention of –"
"We shall discuss this in future, when next we see one another."
***
Claire could scarcely believe David was alive and coming to her. She should eat, but hungered only for the sight of him. She made herself useful to the rescue workers, but it didn't bring him any sooner. She called Roscoe and Don again and they told her that bactericidal nanomolecule production was increasing at a rapid pace. Funny how before today nothing seemed more important than whether those nanomolecules – her strategy to defeat Tivaz TB – would work. Now, with the seventh canister found and Omar Messina captured, all that mattered to her was seeing David.
Finally the loudspeaker boomed her name and she rushed to the command center. They directed her to a small area screened off for privacy where she discovered a petite woman, covered in black from head to toe, weeping quietly. Clearly a mistake had been made. All too aware she'd soon embrace her lover while this poor woman grieved for a lost one, she moved away to grant the woman privacy. But the woman looked up and asked, "Dr. Ashe?"
How does she know who I am?
"I'm Mrs. Bouchta."
Aziz's wife. The widow's silent tears quickly gave way to raw sobs when Claire hugged her and she thanked God again that none of the maimed bodies she'd seen earlier belonged to David. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Take me to him."
My God, she hasn't seen him yet. She stroked Mrs. Bouchta's hand as she led her to the temporary morgue. No words could prepare the widow for the stench of death and acrid chemicals awaiting her, and yet those horrors would pale compared to her first sight of her husband. Claire touched the draped corpse. "Aziz is here."
Claire started to uncover him with slow gentleness, but Mrs. Bouchta yanked the sheet back. Her fingertips passed over every inch of his exposed flesh lovingly, m
ost especially his mangled face and head. She chanted into where his ears should have been, her anguish intelligible in any language, and then kissed, over and over, what remained of his face.
Until she rounded on Claire, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shook her so violently she had to plant her feet to stay upright.
"How could he leave me alone?" Mrs. Bouchta shrieked. "Leave my girls without a father?"
Then she freed Claire just as abruptly, turned back to her husband and pummeled his chest with a fury Claire understood, as never before. She must hate him now so she can love him later.
***
David wasn't pleased when they directed him to the morgue, preferring a more auspicious setting to ask Claire's forgiveness and declare his love. But he was equally desperate to see her so he followed the scent of decay to a large tent. He hesitated before entering and thought how like Claire, who barely escaped death herself, to volunteer in this setting where her coworkers lay lifeless. Such fortitude showed her spine of steel. Would she bend to forgive him?
A man with a clipboard pointed him to the rear of the tent, and the sight of Claire swelled his heart with love . . . and relief. There but for fortune he'd be claiming her cold corpse. Instead, her arm curved around the shoulders of a black-clad woman in mourning. God, she was amazing. And what he sought from her was precisely what those grieving here had lost – love and family. Perhaps here was exactly the right place and time to take her in his arms, kiss the living daylights out of her, and profess his fidelity.
But as he approached Claire and her inconsolable companion, he recognized the man being mourned was his fallen comrade, Aziz Bouchta. Which meant his enemy's mutilated body lay on one of the adjoining plywood slabs and Claire had most likely seen it. Surely she would ask what he learned before killing Varat, but would she question him directly about the desecration of his adversary? He'd come here determined on complete honesty with her, but if he told her the truth of that fight, might she not turn from him in disapproving horror? Could he risk it?
While Mrs. Bouchta held Claire's hand in a firm grip, he halted at a discreet distance and sought words to smooth his path into her heart. He was still searching when Claire looked over her shoulder. Her eyes were misty. Was she was pleased to see him, or was he the last person she wished to see?
When she smiled he knew the answer, and when she mouthed the words 'I love you,' he returned them in kind, so elated he found it difficult not to jump for joy. Instead he took Mrs. Bouchta's other hand, even though it was Claire's he wished to hold now and forever.
"This is David Ruskin," Claire said softly.
"You are Tiger?" Mrs. Bouchta asked. "You were with Aziz when they did this to him?"
He bowed his head in regret. He couldn't blame her for holding him responsible for her husband's death.
"Aziz admired you," she said.
Her words smarted. Not much to admire when he failed to immediately spot Varat's ambush and the result was Bouchta's end. "His death was swift. He did not suffer."
"Nevertheless, he is dead," she said, her voice as dry as sawdust.
He could offer only a cliché, but he spoke the truth. "He is a hero. The invitation in his pocket led me to the Governor's. Because of Aziz your daughters live, and your King is in his debt."
Fresh tears washed over Mrs. Bouchta and she keened toward her husband's body. He and Claire supported her until she bid Aziz a final farewell. When at last he and Claire were alone, he held her close, aware she was dearer to him than life itself, and whispered, "Darling, I love you more than anything. Let us leave here as soon as possible."
Chapter 48
Claire was ready to go, but only after picking up the small amount of vaccine material she'd been able to salvage from the explosion. Even with Varat dead and Messina in custody, the knowledge acquired during this crisis would be helpful to whoever took the lead during future attacks with new bioweapons yet to be devised.
In the middle of the devastation that had once been a vaccine plant, David held the door of the gleaming black limo and helped her into the backseat. He was the perfect gentleman despite the bloodstained bandage on his neck, rumpled clothes caked with dried blood, and a dark five o'clock shadow. His face was clean but his eyes were weary. In short, he never looked more handsome.
"You were hurt in the fight with Varat."
His deep rumble could have meant anything.
"He was completely torn up," she said.
He looked away. "I held Varat responsible for your death. And Jeremy's. He was already dead when I took my revenge."
She shrank at the memory of the gash across Varat's throat, and the sight of his brain leaking from one demolished eye socket. "You savaged him, David."
"I did."
His pitiless reply chilled her. "Killing him wasn't enough?"
"No, it was not." He dropped his head in his hands. "And I am ashamed."
"I know you were enemies. You hated each other –"
"No, you're wrong! We were brothers Claire, blood brothers, more alike than different," he cried out. "I defiled the man who knew me best of all."
She was well aware how David despised Varat, but he grieved for him too, and viewed him as a kindred spirit. Yet the man she'd grown to love, though capable of brutality and skilled at dissembling, was not black-souled like his enemy. She took David's bleak, bristly face in her hands. "You are not the same as Varat. You would never do what he did to those children in Paris."
He looked up and she thought she'd never seen him as desolate as now, unable to forgive himself for inflicting such blind retribution on Varat.
"You are not a cold-blooded killer. You're not," she swore.
"I long to be as convinced as you."
"I'm certain of who you are, and you are not Varat." She touched the bandage at his throat. "Were you badly hurt?"
"Not so badly," he replied.
He sounded more like himself and allowed her to touch him. This hint of normalcy relieved her.
"Thank you for accepting me for who I am, Claire." He kissed her forehead. "It means a great deal to me. Someday I hope to be able to explain it to myself and you." He ran his hands through his filthy hair and sighed. "And now I thought we'd take the last flight out tonight. Go home. Is that okay with you?"
Home?
"Sherborne House. Our home."
"David –"
He stopped her words with a passionate kiss that lasted half way to the airport where the plane waited to take them . . . home. Yes, she could say that now. And soon they would be together in her bed in the Duchess suite. She relaxed against his chest until his phone buzzed.
"Sorry, darling. I must take it. Bobby."
***
"Where are ya, pal?"
He was right where he wanted to be. In the Governor's limo on his way to fly home to a life with the woman he loved. "About to reach Agadir airport and then back to London."
"Change of plans. Army barracks hit in Kansas."
He straightened. "You're certain it's Tivaz TB?"
At his question, Claire tore at his sleeve and he'd no choice but to punch the speakerphone button so she might share in every word.
"Not confirmed yet, but looks like." Bobby groaned. "First report to CDC had them thinkin' pneumonia, typical army barracks stuff. But one of the docs there says this is way too fast and hard-hitting for run-of-the-mill pneumonia."
"The victims are adults?" Claire verified.
"Yep, men and women in tip-top shape."
"Then Messina's done something to enhance Tivaz TB."
"Just talked to Strong and Smartz, and they're thinkin' the same thing. Get yourselves here pronto and bring whatever vaccine you got –"
"We need to bring Messina too," Claire interrupted. "We have to find out what he did to the bug if it's hitting adults."
"Bobby, arrange for us to get custody of Messina." If Claire thought taking the devil with them might help her, she had his support. "Have him brought to the
airport. We'll take him to Kansas."
"Sorry, pal."
"Bobby, I appreciate Messina's under Morocco's jurisdiction, but surely, given the circumstances –"
"He can't go."
"Then I'll go to wherever he is," Claire asserted. "I must speak to him."
"No can do."
"Why ever not? Take the request all the way to the top if you must." The blasted international restrictions. "Just do it, Bobby."
"Would if I could, pal. Messina's dead."
"Dead?" Claire turned on him. "You told me he was in custody."
"So he was when I left the Governor's. Bobby, please explain."
"Messina killed himself, least that's what they say."
"And you do not believe them any more than do I."
"C'mon, pal, Morocco ain't gonna give me the X, Y, Z of it."
Claire pursed her lips, her irritation with Bobby's account . . . or lack thereof . . . obvious.
"If Messina can't tell us what he's done," she said, "I need Roscoe Smartz to help me figure out how he made Tivaz TB more lethal."
"Already done. He's on his way from London with that new nano stuff. That should do the trick, right?"
"There's no way to know. We designed it to kill Tivaz TB as we knew it yesterday, not today."
Claire had warned them in the videoconference the bug could evolve or Messina could create a more toxic strain, and also that he was capable of weaponizing additional Tivaz TB. That meant more attacks might be in the offing. "Bobby, you've raised the threat level at your bases?"
"Yep. But there are zillions of 'em."
Varat's words flashed in David's brain. "Bobby, before we fought, Varat boasted that after he killed me he'd live to enjoy devastation from plots I'd yet to uncover."
"Shit. Doesn't sound good. Not good at all, pal."
"Agreed." God damn Varat's bloody soul, but he had every right to boast. He'd outwitted them with an attack on the U.S. Army. Why didn't he fully grasp that Varat's goal was vengeance on Iran for executing his family, and he wouldn't stop until he accomplished that. Targeting the U.S. military was brilliant. "Bobby, Varat's scheme all along was designed to launch a war with Iran. We didn't uncover the money trail back to Tehran; he gave it to us to allow him to achieve his ultimate goal."