“Why?” he asked suddenly.
“Why what?”
“You could have any man you wanted. Why me?”
“Because you are a good man. A humble man. And a brave one. But as capable as you are, you need looking after, Shaw. You need me. And I need you.”
He kissed her, ran his fingers along her cheek.
“Do you have to leave now?”
He shook his head. “Two days.”
“Where to now?”
“Scotland.”
He took Anna in his arms, let her blonde hair touch his face, her scent mingle with his, canal stink and all.
“But first, to bed.”
They made love again. After she fell asleep, Shaw put one hand behind his head and the other protectively over Anna’s arm.
He listened to the rain and envisioned Frank chuckling at having screwed him again. He touched Anna’s face. Yes, it was different now.
The Dublin torrent poured on; each drop of water was a jacketed round fired right into his brain. Shaw had asked her to marry him. But after his conversation with Frank, he feared it might turn out to be the biggest mistake of his life.
CHAPTER 15
“R.I.C.?” ANNA SAID as she held the paper up to Shaw, who was pouring coffee, still dressed in his boxers. She pushed the room service cart away a bit and unfolded the insert that had slipped out from the Herald Tribune.
Shaw looked over her shoulder. The article was long, brimming with factoids, and constituted another compelling broadside fired against the government of the Russian Federation. The title of the article might have been, “The Evil Empire, Act Two.”
Shaw read out loud, “The Russian Independent Congress, or R.I.C., and its adjunct division, the Free Russia Group, appeal to free countries everywhere to stand up to President Romuald Gorshkov and an administration of terror and oppression before it is too late.”
Anna glanced at another section. “The Gorshkov administration has filled secret prisons with political opponents, murdered rivals, instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing at the highest levels of power, and are secretly manufacturing and stockpiling WMDs in clear contravention of myriad disarmament treaties.” She gazed up at Shaw. “First the Konstantin business, then all those allegedly dead Russians, and now this? Have you ever heard of this organization, the R.I.C.?”
He shook his head. “There’s a Web site listed at the bottom of the page.”
She slid her laptop out, fired it up, and within a minute was hooked to the hotel’s wireless network. Her quick fingers skimmed across the keys and a colorful page sprang up on the screen.
“Look at this Web site.” She pointed to the screen. “This wasn’t online yesterday, I would’ve heard about it.”
Anna snatched up her ringing cell phone, listened, asked questions, and listened some more. She clicked off and glanced over at Shaw. “Well?” he said.
“That was my office. Everyone’s buzzing about this new article. Gorshkov and his ministers are said to be furious. They’re denying everything and demanding to know who’s behind what they call a grand smear campaign.”
“Any idea who did do it?”
She shook her head. “As yet unknown. It needn’t be a large group behind this. Or even lots of money. Although this newspaper insert wasn’t cheap, a few good computer people can swamp the globe with propaganda, we’ve all seen that.”
“And everyone else has sort of jumped on the bandwagon.”
She looked back at the computer and scrolled through the site. “It’s Russian evil this and Russian evil that. My office has done several white papers on the Russians’ slide back to an autocratic system of government. It’s of concern professionally and personally. Tensions are very high between Moscow and the rest of the world right now. And all of this certainly hasn’t helped matters.”
“Well, forewarned is forearmed,” Shaw said.
She looked at him thoughtfully. “That’s the problem. When one is forearmed, one tends to pull the trigger faster than one should.”
“Like old times, though,” he said. “Cold war redux.”
She stared at him strangely. “Perhaps someone wants the old world order back.”
The rain had broken. He only had two days left with Anna. Perhaps forever.
He took her in his arms and said, “Screw the Russians.”
He held her so tightly she said, “Shaw, I can’t breathe.”
He let her go, stepped back, staring down.
She cupped his chin with her hand. “We’re engaged. You should be happy.”
“I am, happier than I’ve ever been.”
“You don’t look very happy.”
“We have to leave each other.”
“But not for long. We’ll be together again soon.”
He wrapped his arms around her again, though not as tightly.
There is no guarantee. None.
CHAPTER 16
TWO DAYS LATER Shaw kissed a tearful Anna good-bye.
“We need to set a wedding date,” he told her.
She looked at him strangely. “Yes, of course.”
Shaw drove off in a rental car, but didn’t head to the airport. He was going to Malahide Castle.
Malahide, in Gaeilge, means “on the brow of the sea.” It is situated on the Howth peninsula at the north end of Dublin Bay. Built on a small rise, it has a commanding view of the water, because in those days enemies would often come by boat to pillage and slaughter. Now Shaw passed broad fields on the grounds of the castle where local teams played rugby and cricket, without an ax-wielding pillager in sight.
He paid his euros and was admitted to the oldest inhabited castle in Ireland. It looked like one would expect of a medieval keep: built of sturdy stone block, with wings of imposing circular turrets and ivy grafted onto its hard skin. It had belonged to the Talbot family from 1185 right up to the 1970s.
He waited until the current tour was over and then walked up to the small, thin woman who’d just finished telling a gaggle of tourists all about Malahide Castle, the Talbot family, the Battle of Boyne, the disappearing virgin, and the building’s four ghosts, including the puckish “Puck.”
“Hello, Leona.”
She turned, hesitantly at first, and then swung around to stare straight up at him. Leona Bartaroma was in her sixties, her long hair still dark, her face mostly unlined, her lips full and painted a muted red that coexisted nicely with her natural coloring.
She said nothing, but took his arm and quickly guided him into a small room and shut the door behind them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she spat out.
“I take it you’re not happy to see me.”
“If Frank finds out…”
“Frank always knows exactly where I am, thanks to you.” He pressed his finger against his right side. “That’s why I’m here.”
She sat down behind a small wooden desk with cherubs carved into its sides. “I do not understand you, Shaw. I never have.”
“I want you to take it out.”
“I’m retired. I give tours. I don’t perform surgery.”
He stepped closer to the desk. “You have one more operation inside you.”
“Impossible.” She started sifting papers on her desk.
“Nothing’s impossible if you want it badly enough.”
“You are a fool.”
“I’m retiring soon too, Leona. And I want it out.”
“Find someone else, then.” She waved a hand carelessly around the room as though another person with surgical skills was lurking somewhere there.
“You, Leona. I know how you put it in me. If it’s taken out incorrectly…”
Her dark face turned noticeably paler. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Dirk Lundrell, Leona, remember him? He tried to have his removed. They still haven’t found all the pieces.”
“Lundrell came to me too. And I told him the same thing I’m telling you. No!”
“What if Frank approves it?” He cocked his head at her. “What then?”
“You think Frank would okay something like that?” she scoffed. “I have heard he and you still don’t get along.” She smiled. “And retiring? You don’t retire from your line of work, Shaw.”
“I’m getting married. Two more jobs, I’m done.”
“You, married?” she said incredulously.
“Yeah. What, you don’t think people like me get married? I’ve spent six years of my life nearly getting killed. I’m tired. I’m done.”
“I know what you have done these last six years,” she said more calmly. “I know well the risks you’ve taken.” She paused to study him. “What is the woman’s name?”
“What?”
“Your fiancée? What is her name?”
“Anna.”
“I was married once.” Leona looked down at her hands. “You love her very much?”
“I wouldn’t be marrying her if I didn’t.”
Leona was silent for a long moment while Shaw simply stared at her.
“If Frank approves it, I will take it out of you.”
“And I’ll still be alive when you’re done?”
“Surgery always involves risk,” she began. But then she added, “You will live.”
He rose. “That’s all I needed to know. I’ll be in touch.” He turned to leave.
“Where is this Anna from?”
“Germany.”
“German women make good wives, or so I’ve heard.”
Shaw closed the door softly behind him. Now all he had to do was convince Frank. And survive the next few days.
Three hours later, he was on a high-speed catamaran crossing the Irish Sea to England. Normally he would’ve just flown to Edinburgh from Dublin, but his instructions had been clear. Take the ferry. And then, at Holyhead, an express train through Wales to London. And from there an overnight sleeper to the Scottish capital. He would arrive in the wee hours, whereas a direct flight from Dublin to Edinburgh would’ve taken less than an hour.
In the lounge of the catamaran, Shaw sat at the third desk from the right set along one wall. There was a light on the desk. He turned it off, on, and then off again in accordance with the instructions he’d been given.
While he was waiting he opened the book to read Anna’s inscription to him. Her message was written in French, but his language skills were sufficient enough to translate. It was short, simple, and hit him like a sledgehammer.
Love without trust is nothing.
As Shaw slowly closed the book he instinctively glanced up.
Tipped off by his signal with the lamp, a man was coming his way. They always were.
CHAPTER 17
SHAW ARRIVED IN EDINBURGH and walked from the train station to the Balmoral Hotel at one end of the North Bridge. Anna’s inscription in her book was seared across his brain. Love without trust is nothing. Around three in the morning he fell asleep, thoughts of a possible life and family with Anna drifting through his mind.
And maybe that’s why it began. Again.
“Mudder? Where’s Mudder?”
“Shut the hell up, you dumb shit. You ain’t got no mum!”
The little boy, just awoken from a nightmare, cried louder, “Mudder!”
One of the older boys mimicked the child’s speech. “‘Mudder, where’s Mudder?’ Mudder’s dead. That’s why you live in an orphanage, you idiot.”
Another older boy chuckled and said, “Mudder’s dead. Mudder’s dead. Mudder is absolutely, positively dead.”
Then they all heard the slow footsteps and the room grew quiet save for the little boy’s choking cries.
“Mudder? Where’s Mudder?”
The squat old nun came into the room and glided to the bed. She obviously knew the destination well, even in the dark. She took the little boy in her arms, rocked him, patted his head, and kissed his cheek.
“Just a bad dream, that’s all. I’m here, child. It’s all right. Just a nightmare.”
Her presence always calmed the boy, and he finally fell silent. He was big for his age, but the nun, though old, was strong. The years did not seem to have worn her down, though she had much to weary her here.
She laid him back on his small cot, of which there were twenty-six in a room meant to hold half that number. The nun knew the boys could walk on the beds to reach the two bathrooms they all shared, so closely stacked were the cots. Yet they had a bed, a roof over their heads, and some food in their bellies. For such children, that’s all that mattered to them now. Or probably ever would.
As the nun trudged back to her room, fifty-two ears listened to her measured footfalls. When the sound of her door closing was heard, an older boy said, “And your father’s dead too. Drank himself right into the gutter. Saw him do it.”
“Mudder’s dead,” the other boy started chanting again, but in a quieter voice, for while the nun was a good woman her patience had its limits.
The little boy did not cry out this time. His body did not start shaking, as it sometimes did when they taunted him. An hour later the chanting and verbal barbs stopped. All were asleep.
All except for one.
He climbed down from his bed, dropped to the floor, and slid on his belly like he’d seen soldiers do on the black-and-white TV in the nun’s part of the building. She would let him come there sometimes, for a drink of fresh orange juice and a slice of bread slathered in rich butter and thick jelly.
He reached the bed, sat up on his haunches, coiled into a ball, and pounced.
His hands closed around the other boy’s throat. One fist connected to the far larger child’s face. Blood spurted onto the bedcovers, and he felt it splash on his arm. He smelled sweat. And fear. It would be the first of many times he would experience it in someone else.
He aimed another fist and connected with soft flesh. Then something hard struck him in his right eye. It stung, and his face immediately felt puffy. A bony knee wedged painfully into his belly, forcing the breath from him. Still, he hung on. He hit with his hands, his feet, even his head, driving it deep into the chest cavity of the boy under him. He felt his own blood rush down his face, tasted it when the wet ooze hit his lips. It was salty and thick and made him sick. Yet he didn’t let go.
“Mudder!” he heard his voice cry out. His arms and legs worked like pistons; his chest was so heavy from exertion it felt like his lungs had solidified.
“Mudder… is,” he panted.
Hands tore at him, nails like claws ripped at his back. Someone was screaming into his ear, but it was as though they were on the other side of a waterfall.
He struck, flesh, bone, cartilage. The claws ripped. The blood poured into his mouth. The taste of the ocean.
“Mudder… is… not.”
The Whole Truth Page 6