“But…” She felt a spasm in her gut, then a wave of nausea. Julian had set her up to fail? Impossible. “Matthew, he would never have—”
“Betrayed the memory of his son? Yes, that is why you are alive. It will not hurt that you will be a recognizable face for the American media, worth more alive than dead. Since his son was killed Monsieur Mellow has had one thought: the destruction of Le Père. But he was never so foolish as to think that you and your friends could do that. Only the great United States of America can bring down a government. The slaughter of a hundred insurgents, the imprisonment of an internationally recognized fashion model, what happened earlier at the US embassy, those poor little girls…in these events, not your little insurrection, are the seeds of Le Père’s destruction.”
“The embassy, you…”
“Yes, I have been busy. Monsieur Mellow leaves nothing to chance, it is why he is who he is. We allowed a few of your comrades to escape to the embassy, as planned, as Julian planned, and then we had no choice but to go in and get them, n’est-ce pas? But I must leave for the airport now and begin my new life in France, a very good life. And this is why I have come here.” He stepped toward her and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I will be a very rich man, Sophie. In a country not like this one, a country where all the comforts and pleasures that money can buy are at one’s fingertips.” He actually rubbed his right thumb across his fingers. “I would like to propose that you come with me. Monsieur Mellow will not be happy—you are more valuable to him as a prisoner in Kamalia, but I have confirmed that the money has been transferred, so this one thing will be beyond his control.”
“He betrayed us…”
“Perhaps you are thinking of my wife, but in France this will not be a problem. You will have your own apartment in a good arrondissement, an allowance.”
She flew from the chair and spat in his face.
He stared at her for a few long moments, perhaps considering whether to strike her, then calmly took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his face. “Eh bien, you have chosen your fate, to rot in prison until the Americans come, assuming they come. That will depend on whether Monsieur Lightstone wins tomorrow. Perhaps it will be better for you if he loses, because you can be sure that Le Père will not allow you to be rescued.”
She raised a hand to strike him but he grabbed it and forced it down, then took her other hand and held it by her side.
“Beautiful women have choices, Sophie. It is a shame you don’t know that.” He pulled her to him and kissed her roughly on the mouth. She bit down hard on his lower lip. He howled as he shoved her across the room. As she hit the wall she felt the wind rush out of her.
“Putain,” he snarled, dabbing his bleeding lip with the handkerchief. “Stupid whore.” He crossed the room and opened the door. “Take her to the prison.”
Chapter 72
Julian walked confidently across the lobby of the Nassau Hotel, a small deco-style building that retained the faded, depressing air that had been renovated out of its more fashionable neighbors in South Beach. He’d called the hotel from the taxi on the way in from the airport and managed to secure Sarah’s room number. And he’d had the taxi drop him off at a florist, where he bought a small bunch of roses; who would detain a well-dressed man, his face obscured by flowers? Just before entering the Nassau he’d tried Sarah’s room again; she was still out.
On the fifth floor, where Sarah was staying, he saw a maid’s cart outside a guest room. He softly knocked on the door and entered. She was a short, squat woman, visibly tired after a long day cleaning rooms. He closed the door behind him.
“I almost finish,” she said as she continued making the king-size bed. Behind her was a vacuum cleaner, plugged into the wall. He crossed the small room and used his right foot to turn it on.
“Que?” she said, turning around. By then he had the pistol out of his pocket. “Dios mío,” she said.
“Give me the master key,” he said.
“No comprendo.” Tears were already streaming down her plump cheeks.
“The key.” He pointed with his free hand to the access card hanging from a cord attached to her belt.
With some difficultly she unclipped the cord and held out the card, which he took from her.
“Please, you want money, I give you, here, see?” She reached into her apron pocket and took out a fistful of bills, the tips from a day’s hard labor, perhaps ten or fifteen dollars. “You have it, yes?”
For some reason that small wad of bills enraged him, maybe the notion that anyone, even a hotel maid, could equate his mission with so meager an offering. When he showed no interest in the money she began to moan. “Why, I no understand…”
“Because I can’t leave you alive to identify me,” he said.
“Que?”
“Go into the bathroom.” When she hesitated he repeated the instruction and she obeyed. In the windowless bathroom he told her to turn on the shower. When she did, he closed the door.
The first shot hit her stomach, sending her back onto the sink. He fired again, this time just above her right eye. She fell onto floor.
Between the vacuum cleaner and the shower and the closed bathroom door, he felt confident that the two shots had not been heard outside the room. And the hotel felt empty, though he had no evidence other than a deserted lobby and the fact that November was far from peak season in South Beach. Quickly, he went to the hallway and pulled her cart back into the room. He picked up the vacuum, shut the door, headed down the hall to Sarah’s room, and used the master key card to unlock the door.
Her room was identical to the one he’d just left, but it had a woman’s presence, a vague scent of powder or body lotion in the air, various feminine garments hanging from doorknobs or folded and stacked on whatever surface was available. The room itself, like the one he’d just left, was what he’d expected, given the shabby condition of the lobby: a queen-size bed covered in a cheap-looking floral comforter, a desk and matching bureau pocked with dings and old cigarette burns, a TV bolted to the top of a minibar. The single window looked across a narrow alley to another stucco building. This room, too, had a small, windowless bathroom.
He moved the desk chair to a spot behind the door, so that Sarah wouldn’t see him when she entered, sat down, placed his pistol on his lap, and waited. It seemed unfathomable that it had come to this: hiding in a third-rate hotel room, having shot an innocent woman, about to commit a second murder. It had been an unshakable tenet of his life that there was always someone else on hand to get things done. Other people, other people’s money. Now he had no one.
He almost jumped from the chair when the phone rang. He noticed that the message indicator light on the phone was already on and waited until a few minutes after the phone stopped ringing to call in for messages. There were two, both from Zach, both frantically warning her to get out. The most recent was the most disturbing. “Get out of the room! I’m in Miami. I’m coming to the hotel. Leave the room. Go to the nearest police station.”
How had he made those calls? Where was Sandifer? The fact that the message light has been on when he entered the room meant that Sarah hadn’t picked up the first message, but what if there’d been an earlier one, and she had fled? He erased both messages, sat down behind the door, and used his phone to call Billy Sandifer’s cell. No answer. How had Zach managed to get away?
He pressed 1 to erase the messages, as instructed, hung up, and waited. An hour. Two. And then heard the door unlock.
Chapter 73
Sarah entered the room carrying a beach bag and towel and closed the door behind her. Halfway across the room she must have spotted him in the mirror over the desk, for she turned quickly and let out a short scream. He aimed the pistol at her as he stood up.
“Hello, Sarah.”
She backed up until she hit the television, hands covering her mouth. “Please don’t hurt me,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know anything about what you’re doin
g.”
She dropped her things and sidled across the room, back against the wall, until she was in the corner. He stepped closer. He raised the gun and pillow.
There was a sudden knock at the door.
He shook his head, signaling for her to say nothing. A second knock, this one somewhat more insistent. “Miss Pearlman? It’s the Miami Beach Police. Are you in there?”
Julian stepped closer to her, until the gun was just a foot or so away from her chest. He heard muffled voices from the hallway: “Go get a room key and we’ll look inside.”
“Ask what they want,” Julian whispered to Sarah. When she hesitated, he added: “If they come in the room you’ll die first.”
“What do you want?” she said.
“Sarah Pearlman?” one of the policemen said.
Julian nodded at her and she said, “Yes.”
“Can you let us in, Miss Pearlman?”
Julian shook his head and whispered, “You just got out of the shower.”
“I just got out of the shower!”
“Are you all right, Miss Pearlman? We had a report that you might be in danger.”
“From who?” Julian whispered.
“From who?” Sarah said.
“Name of Zach Springer.”
“He’s insane,” Julian whispered. “He does this all the time.”
“He’s insane! He does this all the time.”
“We really need to see you, Miss Pearlman.”
She repeated exactly what Julian dictated: “No. This is what he wants, to humiliate me. I can’t let you in.”
“We can’t leave without—”
“Get a warrant!” she said as directed.
There was some muffled talk between the cops, then: “Okay, Miss Pearlman. As long as you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” Julian whispered.
“I’m okay!” Sarah said.
“Enjoy your stay in South Beach,” one of the cops said with undisguised sarcasm.
Julian felt his knees weaken, his hands trembling. That was as close as he’d ever come to defeat.
“Sit down,” he said to Sarah, motioning to the desk chair. When she complied he sat on the edge of the bed, gun pointed at her chest, and waited.
Chapter 74
Zach’s taxi pulled up to the Nassau Hotel just as a Miami Beach Police car was pulling away from the curb. He took that as a hopeful sign that nothing had happened. Again, he ran through the timing and guessed he was about two or three hours behind Julian. He paid the driver and got out. Crossing the small lobby, he took added comfort in the calmness that pervaded the space—nothing suggested a crime scene. He took the elevator to the fifth floor, sprinted down the long, dimly lit hallway to Sarah’s room, and knocked on the door.
“Sarah? Sarah!” He heard some sort of movement from inside the room. “Sarah! It’s me, it’s Zach!”
A moment later the door opened and she was standing there. He felt the weight of the past twenty-four hours fall away as he took her in his arms and moved into the room. She was okay.
“I tried calling…Sarah, Julian knows where you are, he—”
He was standing just to the side of the door, a gun in one hand. The pistol was aimed at Sarah’s back.
“Shut the door, Zach.” Julian’s voice was flat, disapproving. When Zach hesitated he raised the pistol and said: “Shut it or she dies now.”
Zach shut the door. “Let her go, Julian. She’s not involved, she doesn’t know anything.”
“Too late for gallantry. Sarah, pick up the remote control from the desk behind you.”
Her hand trembled as she obeyed. Her eyes were bloodshot and teary, her face ghostly pale.
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Zach whispered.
“Now, turn on the television.”
“But I—”
“NOW.”
She flicked on the TV to a news show. A political commentator was noting that Harry Lightstone had pulled ahead in most national polls, thanks largely to his prescient position on Kamalia. The bloodbath at the US embassy there had sparked outrage among American voters over the Nessin administration’s failure to anticipate what the Lightstone campaign had been warning about for months. The scandal involving the vice president’s blind trust had also hurt the incumbent.
“Fitting background, don’t you think?” Julian said, his voice still flat but a bit less disapproving. “Turn up the volume.” Sarah pressed the volume button. “Louder!” She cranked up the volume until the analyst’s voice ricocheted off the room’s walls.
“Now turn on the vacuum,” he said. She looked momentarily confused, then even more terrified. “NOW.” Her hands shook as she switched it on, filling the room with a roar as loud as the television.
“There’ll be an investigation,” Zach shouted. “They’ll connect us; I’ve been talking to people.”
Julian could barely hear him. “I have no choice. Goodbye, Zach.”
Slowly, deliberately, he moved the pistol from Sarah to Zach.
“No, please, don’t!” Sarah yelled.
Zach lunged at him, leaping across the six feet that separated them.
Julian fired. Zach’s sudden movement had cost Julian his aim—the bullet missed him. Julian stumbled back, hitting the wall next to the bed. Zach fell forward and to the side, hitting the wall next to the door. He heard a loud noise, a thud, behind him and turned. Sarah was slumped on the floor, blood pooling around her head.
He knelt by her side. “Sarah. Sarah! Oh, God, Sarah.”
A bullet—the bullet meant for him—had entered her forehead over her left eye. The blood, however, was leaking from the back of her head. He put his lips on hers, gently, and waited for the next shot. He didn’t care what happened now.
“Get up,” Julian said from somewhere very far away.
Zach took her hand and squeezed it. Someone on the television was talking about martial law in Kamalia, another place very far away.
“Get up!”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“One last time, Zach, get up. You can’t help her.”
He leapt to his feet and flew at him, prepared to dig his fingers into Julian’s throat, rip his eyes out, bite out his heart.
Something stopped him.
First, a sound, another explosion. Then a burst of light, just in front of him, like a camera flash. But this flash felt physical; it froze him for a long, empty moment.
Then he began to fall, as if in slow motion. His eyes were fixed on Julian. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want Julian’s face imprinted on his eyelids as they closed.
Sarah.
He tried to turn to her, but his feet felt glued to the floor.
Sarah.
The floor rose up to meet him. If only he could turn just slightly he’d see her, and remember.
Sarah.
Chapter 75
Julian stood for a few moments in the center of the room, as still as the two bodies at his feet. He felt a profound sense of awe at what he’d done. The only two people in the entire world who could harm him were gone. He’d done this. Alone.
He waited, listened. Had anyone heard the shots? The lack of commotion in the hallway was a good sign, but he would do well to get out of there quickly. He clicked off the TV.
He went to the bathroom, got a tissue, and carefully wiped down the pistol, which he then placed near Zach’s right hand. Fortunately, Zach had managed to twist toward his girlfriend with his last bit of life, as if he’d wanted one final glimpse of her. It would look like he had shot her, then himself. The important thing was that his name never be involved. He quickly searched through Sarah’s belongings for any reference to him. Finding none, he turned to Zach’s body, searching his pockets and removing scraps of paper with phone numbers, Zach’s cell phone, and, in his jacket pocket, a piece of yellow foolscap on which he had scribbled notes punctuated by underlined words connected by arrows. Mellow, Lightstone, Sandifer, DuVal. Names tha
t should never have appeared on the same page, and now never would.
“Sorry, Zach,” he said as he placed the paper in his pants pocket. “You lose.”
He left the room, took the service stairs to the lobby, and exited the hotel through a back door that opened onto an alley. In less than a minute he was lost in the throng of South Beach tourists making slow progress along café-lined Lincoln Avenue.
An hour later he was on the Gulfstream, banking over Biscayne Bay as it turned north.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3
Chapter 76
Julian was in the living room of a well-known hedge fund investor when Harry Lightstone’s victory was called by NBC. Caroline had persuaded him to attend the party, and he’d agreed only because he’d been so anxious all day that he decided any distraction—even a roomful of Park Avenue grandees—would be better than waiting at home for a call or visit from the Miami police. Several television sets had been moved into the room, where they clashed absurdly with the gilt-and-brocade Louis the Something décor. Most of the attendees knew Marcella Lightstone from the charity circuit; Lightstone’s victory would not only mean lower taxes, it would mean more or less unfettered access to White House dinners and perhaps even the coveted overnight. The mood was buoyant. One of their own had gotten in. Or the husband of one of their own.
“Lucky bastard,” someone said to him as they watched a second network declare Lightstone the winner. “Those little girls getting gunned down in…what’s that country called? That’s what put him over the top.”
“Kamalia,” Julian said.
Things had gone as planned in Kamalia, at least. DuMarier had delivered exactly as ordered: the ambush at the Palace, the flight to the embassy, the massacre there. He’d paid an extra hundred thousand to have Sophie spared. Julian had convinced himself that keeping her alive would work to his benefit: she would be a rallying symbol, focusing the world’s attention on Kamalia, which could only help his cause in the long run—his work was far from over as far as Kamalia was concerned. But perhaps it was sentiment at work, too. She’d been Matthew’s great love.
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