by Nancy Holder
If she kept her head.
“Cara, cara, don’t despair. She will be fine.”
“Oh, Nicky,” she whispered, remembering when he had been her hero.
MacLeod, please. Please save us, she thought, as Machiavelli gave her a hug and said, “I’ll make everything fine, baby. Don’t be afraid.”
“Afraid?” she echoed, trying to sound calm.
“Death comes for them. They expect it. But I’m sure she’ll live a good while longer.”
“I hope so.” She gazed at him earnestly. “I pray for it.”
“Sweet girl.” He patted her cheek. “You go home in the limo. I’ll be home very late tonight. Will you be all right?”
“Of course.”
“Not too bored?”
“No. I’ll find something to do.”
Mari’s Watcher report. She hadn’t been able to file it. How much of a time window did she have? Would they investigate if they didn’t hear from her?
As the limo pulled away from the hospital, Samantha told the driver to stop at Mari’s penthouse apartment. If he reported to Machiavelli that she’d gone there, she would tell him she’d gone to get some things Mari had requested.
A few months before, Samantha had inadvertently stolen the security key, thinking it belonged to Machiavelli’s private office. Now this key let her into the building, past the doorman, and into the private elevator.
And into Mari’s luxurious apartment.
She hesitated. She had never been here alone. She took off her shoes and shuffled across the yards of white velvet carpet soft and deep as powdered snow, into and through the sunken living room, and up a trio of stairs to Mari’s office.
Mari’s computer sat on her desk. Samantha flipped it on and went to the main menu. There was no password, which surprised her. Maybe Mari figured the house key was protection enough.
One of the files read, Wfile. Watcher file? Samantha took a chance and opened it.
Subject took girlfriend and others to dinner.
That was the only line. She must have planned to finish it when she returned from the restaurant.
The phone rang. Samantha jumped guiltily. The message machine came on. A familiar male voice spoke in rapid Japanese, too fast for Samantha to decipher. Nor could she quite place the voice. Mari had many friends, male and female. Samantha had met many of them.
The caller hung up and Samantha nervously typed in, Dinner re-markedly uneventful.
Mari Iwasawa.
The phone rang again. It was too much activity for her comfort level. What if Mari really had asked a friend to drop by and get some things?
“How long are these things supposed to be, anyway?” she muttered, and hit send.
This week’s was real short.
Chapter Eleven
“A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.”
—Zen saying
There’s no time for us.
She was running to him, her mouth a scream, her eyes depthless pools of fear. Running and shouting his name, but the sound that shattered his heart was the report of a gun.
“Tessa,” MacLeod whispered, and woke himself up. He lay in a sweat in his hotel room, the sheets thrown off, the air chilly on his bare skin.
His cheeks were wet with tears.
He sat up and wiped his face with shaking hands. How many dawns before this nightmare left him?
He knew the answer he wanted: Never. As long as she came to him in his dreams, bad or good, she would never really be gone.
As long as she never left, he could go on.
Tessa, his mortal lover for thirteen years. Tessa, an artist, a generous, creative and lovely woman, who had been killed by a random act of violence: a junkie’s bullet, when he had spent countless sleepless nights worrying that an Immortal would end her life to get at him.
“When I die,” she had once said, very seriously, “you must love again.”
He had believed then that he would.
There had been others.
But to love someone again as he had loved Tessa? He wasn’t sure that was possible.
There’s no time for us, because time has lost its meaning. Time is a mortal concept.
He looked in the window and saw a ghost. Perhaps the ghost of the man he once had been, facing one lifetime of passion, of despair, and of hope.
Ah, yes, hope.
He lay back down.
“Good night, bonnie Tess,” he whispered, and closed his eyes.
She ran toward him, her mouth a scream.
Who dares to love forever?
The man was kind to her.
He took Sammi Jo to his mansion above the bay and told a woman to give her something to eat and to put her in bed. There were all kind of people there, and it wasn’t ‘til much later that Sammi Jo learned that most of them would never die. Thanks to the man, whom she called Nicky, they were what you called Immortal.
And, thanks to him, she would be, too.
But in the beginning, she didn’t know that. She only knew that Nicky had a lot of money, and friends in high places, as they said, and that speaking of high, they smoked a lot of grass in Nicky’s fine, big house.
They dropped a lot of acid.
And in the swirling, happy visions of iridescent sounds and chiming colors, he fed her pills like grapes, his face the sun and the center of her universe. Held in arms both strong and gentle, her face showered with kisses, new clothes and shoes heaped around her bed.
He gave her books, fully expecting she was smart enough to understand them. He talked to her like she had a brain.
He did not treat her like a dog.
But she would have lain down at his feet like one if he’d ever snapped his fingers and told her to.
“That’s the problem, bella mia,” he said once, sighing and looking frustrated.
She hadn’t gotten what he meant until it was too late.
Mari was missing.
Samantha had called her that morning at the hospital to let her know she had filed her Watcher report. But Mari Iwasawa was no longer listed as a patient.
“He’s killed her,” she told her coconspirators.
In the thirty years Samantha had known Machiavelli, he had always gathered around himself a group of Immortals he called his Beauties. He also named them by chess pieces. She was the queen. Ruffio was the king’s rook. No one found this questionable; indeed, it was a great honor to be one of the seven pieces of the inner sanctum. He called no one a pawn, but they all were pawns. Sometimes it took the Beauties a while to figure that out. In her case, almost twenty-seven years. Ruffio still hadn’t figured it out.
But the ones who had were gathered with her under cover of darkness in an abandoned sake storage facility near the harbor. Seven Immortals and at least a dozen mortals sat in silence as Samantha described the fugu incident, her visit to the hospital, and now, the fact that Mari was no longer listed as a patient. Dead silence filled her pauses as she fought for control. She was terrified and grieving. Satoshi had been her best friend within the rebellious group. He had trusted her enough to tell her about the others and defend her when they’d refused to meet with her. It was a tremendous act of courage on Satoshi’s part: she was Machiavelli’s mistress, and she might have told him everything rather than align herself with the other side. For none of them wanted anything less than his head.
It was a risk each was willing to take. The alternative was worse: their existence precarious, their lives controlled and dominated for the rest of eternity by a man with an insatiable need to control and dominate. Their new God for the new millennium, and they, less than the dust beneath His feet.
Their unhappiness and fear had been brewing for a long time, but no one had known what to do about it. They had all been afraid to speak of it, not knowing who was loyal to him and who dreamed of being free of him forever.
Then Mari, whose brother had just consummated business ties with Machiavelli, took ov
er as his Watcher when her first Japanese assignment was killed, and discovered things that had frightened her so badly she was willing to do anything to stop him. She had never revealed the details, but they had to do with controlling vast computer networks.
She had carefully approached first this one, then that one, bringing them together into a band who shared that common goal of taking his head. “If he’s not stopped soon, he’ll be the most powerful entity on earth,” she had warned them. “The time to act has come.”
But they were outnumbered, and outgunned. Machiavelli had vast resources in intelligence and loyal followers, mortal and Immortal, who would do anything, kill anyone, he told them to.
Now she was gone. They were leaderless.
“Did you actually see Satoshi-san die?” Aaron, a new Immortal from Israel, asked Samantha.
“I saw him fall. Then I died,” she said.
“Could it have been a trick?” There was hope in Aaron’s voice.
“Yes.” After the initial shock, she had thought of that, too. Hoped that.
“Maybe he’s holding him somewhere. If we could find him—”
“That could be what he wants us to think,” Samantha interjected. “To distract us. We have to stay focused.”
“I still don’t think he knows about us. I really don’t,” Aaron insisted.
From the darkness came the deep, resonant voice of Ed, formerly an investment banker, and now one of Machiavelli’s most trusted lieutenants. “I have never understood why we don’t simply approach MacLeod and tell him what’s going on.”
There were murmurs of assent.
“Machiavelli’s sending me to Washington,” Samantha announced. “I’ll get a layover on the West Coast and go to MacLeod. I’ll talk to him.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you will,” Aaron teased. They all knew she was intrigued by Duncan MacLeod. They were, too, but in a different way.
“Don’t book the layover in advance,” Taro warned her. Taro was a very new Immortal. Many of Machiavelli’s Beauties were. He was rarely joined by any of the older Immortals. Mari said it was because of his reputation for using young Immortals to achieve his ends, risking their heads unnecessarily. “Machiavelli-sama might find out.” He paused. “Somehow.” Machiavelli’s vast knowledge of things he shouldn’t know was puzzling and frightening to them all.
“Yes.” She nodded. Butterflies danced in her stomach. She was going to meet Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. She was going to talk to the Highlander himself, try to enlist him in their cause. What if he said no? What if Machiavelli found out what she had done?
MacLeod would protect her. Mari had told her all about him. He wouldn’t turn his back on a woman in danger.
“Please excuse, let’s go now,” Hiroshi said. He was Machiavelli’s relief driver. “We have to get Sammi-san back to the apartment.” Machiavelli was “out with the boys,” which could mean he was drinking in a hostess bar or murdering his enemies in slow and painful ways. He usually came home after two, but that was no guarantee that he might not decide to make it an early night. Samantha had taken a great risk staying this late. In that, he did treat her like a dog: she was to stay close to home, dutifully and eagerly waiting for him.
“Domo sumimasen. I have one request,” Taro said, clearing his throat as if embarrassed to speak.
“Hai? Yes?” Samantha answered kindly.
“When you meet MacLeod-san, try to buy his sword. I’ve heard his katana is the finest ever made.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Samantha said. “He’d never part with it.”
“Not even for my Corvette?” He had just purchased a shiny, candy-apple red, 1958 ‘Vette. In Japan, such a car cost more than a house. He’d told her that now that he was Immortal, he could indulge his appetite for fancy things, since he’d have centuries to pay off his credit cards.
“I doubt it. But I’ll ask.” Samantha resisted the temptation to laugh at him. He was young and untrained—he had no idea how ridiculous his request was. She held out her hand in the dark, found his shoulder, and kissed his cheek. He hissed, the Japanese reaction for shyness or surprise.
“We may never see each other again,” she said somberly.
“We will,” Taro insisted. “If MacLeod comes, I know we will.”
Samantha prayed he was right.
And that MacLeod would come.
Chapter Twelve
“When you are going to attack nearby, make it look as if you are going to go a long way; when you are going to attack far away, make it look as if you are going just a short distance.”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Washington, D.C.
Alan Woodrich had left a note and a house key for Dawson at the Department of Justice, explaining that he had been called away on unexpected business but hoped to be back in a couple of days. Dawson didn’t mind; he had war buddies to see and a memorial to visit.
It was almost ten in the evening of the fourth day when MacLeod and Meyer-Dinkmann parted in the chill at the Metro station near the quaint seafood restaurant where they had dined. It was located in the historic section of Alexandria, Virginia, the posh Washington suburb where corporate attorneys and high-level bureaucrats lived.
MacLeod and the German curator had spent the last four days going over the swords in the Smithsonian’s collection, and this was their farewell dinner. Dawson had called MacLeod that afternoon to tell him Woodrich was back and they’d meet MacLeod in the lobby bar of his hotel, the Capitol Hilton, for drinks after dinner.
Glad of his warm turtleneck sweater and duster, MacLeod caught the next subway train to Washington. He compared it to the Parisian métro and the ease of travel in large, historic cities. With his portable computer closed on his lap, he allowed his mind to wander, remembering Paris, the model city for Washington, as it had been when he had first visited it, and how it was now. It had fared better than its progeny.
The Capitol Hilton was in a good location for tourists and politicos, a short walk to the White House and an even shorter limo ride. The lobby was furnished like a men’s club, which it essentially was: except for a scattering of female politicians and sexy young “aides,” the bar was populated with older men in dark suits. Younger men hovered around them. Great whales and darting, voracious pelicans—or were they albatrosses?—in the uneasy and murky seas of government.
Sassenachs, he thought wryly, as he walked toward Dawson’s chair. The aristocrats. The elite ruling class.
He caught sight of the salt-and-pepper crown of Joe’s head above the back of a burgundy chair facing away from him in a secluded corner of the bar. As he walked toward him, a slender Japanese woman in a black crepe dress brushed past him, murmuring, “Looking for someone?”
For a second he was taken aback; then he realized she was plying the world’s oldest profession and grinned to himself.
“Always, and not right now,” he told her. “Domo arigato gozaimasu.”
“Domo sumimasen. Please allow me to present my meishi.” With an incline of her head, she handed him a demure white business card and glided away. Umeko Takahashi, private escort to distinguished gentlemen. Surprised, MacLeod pocketed it.
“Hey,” he said as he reached Dawson’s table, giving him a nod.
“Mac,” Dawson replied in a soft voice. MacLeod cocked his head; Dawson tipped his head toward the chair facing his. A gaunt man of perhaps fifty sat hunched, staring at the cocktail table. He had short, gray hair, a suit a level or two above standard government issue, and enormous circles under his eyes. His skin was pasty and his lower lip trembled as if he might burst into tears. There were two empty tumblers in front of him.
Mac sat in a leather chair at Joe’s right, sinking into the richness of it as he set his laptop carrier on the floor. A waitress arrived with a tray and put another tumbler before the man and gave something tall and clear to Dawson. Soda water, MacLeod guessed.
“Single malt whiskey,” he told the waitress. Dawson’s companion hear
d his voice and started, looking up. MacLeod extended his hand. “Duncan MacLeod,” he said to the man.
“Joe’s friend.” His brief smile was genuine. “I’m Alan Woodrich. Which you’ve probably figured out.” The man shook MacLeod’s hand as if he would have preferred to grab the tumbler.
“How’d it go today?” Dawson asked. It had become something of a joke between the two of them: even Immortals could get tired of discussing swords for four entire days. Maybe intelligent people could get bored after all.
“Meyer-Dinkmann certainly knows his weapons.” MacLeod thought he might have recognized one or two from days and battles gone by, but even an Immortal’s recollection dims upon occasion. He sipped his drink. “I’m glad you could get back to Washington,” he said to Woodrich.
“Yes. Unexpected business. You know how it goes.” This time, when Woodrich smiled, it appeared the effort would crack his face apart.
“Did I mention Al works for the National Security Administration? The spookiest of the spook departments in our great nation’s branch of espionage?” Dawson supplied.
Woodrich shook his head. “Joey, enough with the jokes. How can I work for a department that doesn’t exist?”
“Same way we fought in a war that wasn’t a war,” Dawson countered.
MacLeod thought, That’s one for you, my friend. Vietnam had been wrong.
So many battles were.
Woodrich threw back his drink. MacLeod traded looks with Dawson, who shrugged uncomprehendingly.
Woodrich said, “So how do you like our poor, sad city?”
MacLeod thought of the men who had dreamed the capital into being. The hopes they had had for mankind; their high regard for the human spirit. They would be desolate to see what a wasteland the beautiful temple to democracy had become.
“It has many points in its favor,” MacLeod allowed. “There are many national capitals far poorer and sadder.”
“But we weren’t supposed to be.” Woodrich gazed into space, haunted, exhausted. “We were supposed to sow the fruits of freedom. Liberty.” He laughed bitterly and threw back his drink. He slammed down his glass.