Burnt Sienna

by David Morrell

Someone stood in the aisle. When she turned, Potter’s expression had never been more sullen, the gaze behind his spectacles never more sour.

  “That business with the duffel bags in the plane,” he said. “Cute. I’m going to enjoy what happens to you.”

  She returned her mournful stare to the back of the seat. In a moment, Potter’s presence was replaced by a darker one, and she didn’t need to look to know who took the seat next to her.

  “How much did you tell them?” Derek asked.

  “Everything I could.”

  “Which wasn’t anything important. You were never present for meetings. I never engaged in pillow talk. You know nothing about my business.”

  “Then you don’t have anything to be afraid of.”

  “Did you live with me for so long and not learn even the most basic thing about me?” Derek grasped her chin and turned it in his direction. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “I didn’t live with you, Derek.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You would never allow anyone to live with you. I just happened to share the same building with you.”

  “Why did you betray me?”

  “You expected me to wait around until you killed me? It was all right for you to plan my murder, but for me to leave was unforgivable? You arrogant … Even if you hadn’t been planning to kill me, I’d have left you. For the first time in my life, I found a man who cared for me more than he did for himself.”

  “I gave you the best of everything.”

  “And treated me like one of those things.”

  “It’s better than dying.”

  7

  “Good!” Jeb pushed the disconnect button on his cell phone and turned to let Dillon know what he’d learned.

  Malone interrupted, emerging from a stack of battered furniture in an outdoor storage unit.

  “I don’t know what we’re doing here.” Jeb squinted from the morning sun.

  “I had to pick up this suitcase.”

  “What’s so important about it? I already got you fresh clothes.”

  Malone opened it.

  Jeb stared at the money.

  8

  “No, you come to me,” Ahmed said into his scrambler-equipped telephone. Outside, the traffic sounds of Istanbul’s evening rush hour grew louder. “I don’t see why I should put myself out for you. You’re the one whose affairs are out of order. It’s your obligation to regain my confidence.”

  “But you don’t have the proper facilities.” Bellasar’s voice, crackling with static, came from his own scrambler-equipped telephone aboard his jet. He had refueled at a client’s airstrip in El Salvador, toward which he’d been flying from Miami when he’d learned where Sienna and Malone were hiding. “My technicians can’t guarantee the safety of the demonstration unless it’s conducted in a level-four chamber.”

  “If the weapon is so sensitive, that doesn’t fill me with confidence, either.”

  “I guarantee that when I’m finished, I’ll definitely have your confidence.”

  “It’ll take a great deal to convince me your personal affairs are back in order.”

  “Not after tomorrow. I have a special demonstration planned. Believe me, you’ve never seen anything like it.”

  9

  As the Agency’s jet reached its maximum speed, Jeb came back from the cockpit’s radio. “We just got a report that Ahmed ordered his pilot to be ready to fly to Nice tomorrow.”

  “Then the meeting must be at Bellasar’s estate,” Malone said. “We can intercept Bellasar at Nice’s airport. We can get Sienna away from him.”

  “No. He’s too far ahead of us. We’ll never get there in time.”

  “But you can have the French authorities do it.”

  “On what basis? As far as the French are concerned, he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Then, damn it, order a special ops team to take Sienna away from him.”

  “Without permission from the French? At a major airport? Bellasar’s bodyguards wouldn’t just throw down their weapons and surrender. There’d be gunfire. There’s too great a risk civilians would be killed.”

  “Jesus, you’re telling me we know where and when he’s going to kill her, but we can’t stop it?”

  “If I had the power to make the decision, I would, but the guy dragging his feet is Laster.”

  “That son of a —”

  “Hey, I don’t like him any more than you do,” Jeb said, “but he’s got a point. We can’t cause an international incident over what looks like a family fight.”

  Malone trembled from anger, pain, and exhaustion.

  “When was the last time you took your pain pills?” Jeb asked.

  “They make me groggy.”

  “Good. You need some rest.”

  They studied each other.

  Malone mentally resisted, then nodded.

  He swallowed two pills and tried to tell himself that things weren’t as hopeless as they seemed, that there was something he could think of to save Sienna, but he had the terrible suspicion he was wrong.

  Isn’t denial the first phase of grief? he asked himself.

  Don’t give up. She isn’t dead yet.

  10

  No one talked to her again. No one even looked at her. They behaved as if she weren’t present. As far as they’re concerned, I’m already a corpse, Sienna thought.

  Throughout the flight, when meals were served, she wasn’t offered anything, a further example of the contempt with which she was treated. Not that she was hungry. Chase’s death had so numbed her that she couldn’t care less about food. But that didn’t matter — if she was going to starve, by God, she wanted it to be her choice. As everyone else ate, she went to the galley at the rear of the jet. When she brought back crackers and a cup of tea, she got no reaction from anyone. She was like a ghost passing among them. She felt like hurling the steaming tea at Derek, and that was when she realized that despair had given way to fury.

  She was determined to survive. To get even. How she was going to survive, she had no idea. But she had to think aggressively. Because survival wasn’t enough. She had to make Derek pay.

  That motivation fiercely possessing her, she forced herself to pick up a cracker. Her emotions were so chaotic that the thought of eating made her nauseous, but she marshaled her strength. She bit into the cracker, chewed tastelessly, swallowed hard, and got it down.

  She took another bite, then another.

  Still, no one looked at her. Staring at the back of Derek’s head, she thought, You bastard, I’m not a thing. You can’t just hang me on a wall. Her memory angrily transported her back to the room where she had seen the portraits of her and Derek’s other wives.

  And the photographs of Derek’s sister, whom she and the portraits so closely resembled.

  And the clothes on the mannequin, and the shoes neatly arranged, and the scrapbook.

  And the urn.

  None of this would have happened if I hadn’t resembled Derek’s sister.

  Derek’s sister, she chillingly realized, was the only chance she had.

  11

  “I need to wake you, Chase.”

  Malone felt as if his eyelids had weights on them. Slowly, Jeb came into focus. “The same drill as before. How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “… Three.”

  “Seeing double?”

  “… No.”

  “Feeling sick to your stomach?”

  “No.” Malone rubbed his hand across his face, regretting the gesture when his injuries protested. He squinted toward the darkness outside the jet’s window. “Where are we?”

  “Over the Atlantic. Do you remember refueling at Dulles?”

  Malone thought a moment. “Yes.”

  “I think we can stop worrying about your concussion.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Southern France.”

  “Didn’t Laster object?”

  “He doesn’t know about
this.”

  Malone’s surprise increased when he noticed Jeb’s partner, Dillon, talking to five stocky men in the forward seats.

  “Who … ”

  “I made some calls en route from Yuma. These are guys I’ve worked with from time to time. They’re looking for work. When they came aboard at Dulles, you’d fallen back asleep.”

  “But you said Laster didn’t sanction a mission.”

  “Affirmative. This isn’t official. You’re hiring them with what’s in your suitcase.”

  “An unsanctioned mission could cost you your job. Why are you sticking your neck out?”

  “Because you saved my life in Panama.”

  “You already paid that back.”

  “No. If not for me, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “If not for you, I’d never have met Sienna.”

  “Then let’s see if we can get her back,” Jeb said. “This is the latest information we have.”

  Malone frowned at a dossier Jeb handed him.

  Opening it, he found an eight-by-ten-inch photograph. “A picture of Sienna.” Then he felt a chill as he realized he was wrong.

  The photograph showed a sensuous dark-haired woman sitting with Bellasar, drinking from a champagne glass on a terrace that overlooked a beach.

  “It was taken at Puerto Vallarta three months ago,” Jeb said. “There were a lot of guards around Bellasar, so our photographer had to work from a distance. The poor angle and the graininess make it seem this woman is Sienna. But the truth is, she’s the daughter of a French industrialist who manufactures some of the weapons Bellasar sells. Bellasar met her at a cocktail party the father gave in Paris six months ago.”

  “About the time Bellasar started rejecting Sienna. Of course. He’d found her replacement.” Malone concentrated on the photograph. “With slightly longer hair and some surgery to narrow her chin, she’ll look even more like Sienna.”

  “And like Bellasar’s sister. Until Sienna told us about her, we had no idea about the sister’s importance.” Jeb pointed toward the next photograph.

  His skin prickling, Malone studied it. The voluptuous dark-haired woman wasn’t Sienna, and yet she had the same body type and facial structure, the same smoldering quality in her eyes. In shadows, the two could have been confused for each other.

  “Bellasar and his sister became lovers when he was fourteen and she was a year younger,” Jeb said.

  “What?”

  “By all accounts, the sister — her name was Christina — was remarkably self-indulgent and impetuous. They went everywhere together. Did everything together.”

  “But if it was so obvious, the parents must have known. Didn’t they object?”

  “They didn’t have a chance.”

  Malone was puzzled.

  “The parents died in a fire at their summer home in Switzerland — the same summer Bellasar and his sister became lovers.” Jeb let the significance sink in.

  “Oh shit,” Malone murmured.

  “For the next three years, Bellasar and Christina partied. Rome, London, Rio. Meanwhile, a trust ran the business. But when Bellasar turned eighteen, he and his sister took control. Their tastes were so expensive that, to generate more income, they ran the business more ruthlessly than the trust had. But thirteen years later, the parties ended.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Christina was thirty, she died in a fall from a hotel balcony in Rome. It seems Bellasar wasn’t enough for her. She had affairs with every man who came along. One night in Rome, Bellasar broke into her room, found her with a woman, and couldn’t keep control any longer. They fought. It ended when she went over the balcony.”

  “He murdered his sister?” Malone tasted bile. “But according to this dossier, he wasn’t charged.”

  “The only witness was the woman Bellasar found her with. Bellasar paid her off. The story was that Christina had been doing drugs, which was true, and that she’d toppled over the railing. The bribed witness died in a hit-and-run accident three months later.”

  “And ever since, he’s been searching for someone to replace his sister.”

  12

  She knew she had to try to sleep. She couldn’t risk fatigue dulling her thoughts. More, her plan depended on Derek’s knowing she had slept.

  At first, she pretended, merely closing her eyes and tilting her seat back. Furious ideas buzzed through her mind, interrupted by bursts of fear that she strained to repress. She had to make rage her solitary emotion. To steady herself, she concentrated on the drone of the jet’s engines. The darkness behind her closed eyes deepened.

  A hand shook her roughly.

  “Uh … ”

  “Wake up.” Potter shook her again.

  Groggy, she blinked, adjusting her eyes to the harsh lights in the cabin, noting that outside it was dark.

  “Get in the rest room.”

  “What?”

  “We’re about to land,” Potter said. “Get in the rest room. Stay there until I tell you to come out.”

  As the jet descended, Sienna saw lights below and recognized the glitter of the Promenade des Anglais along Nice’s harbor.

  “Damn it, do what I tell you.” Potter yanked her seat belt open and pulled her upright so hard, her teeth snapped together. He dragged her to the back and shoved her into the rest room.

  As the door was slammed in her face, Sienna remembered a time when Derek would have killed Potter for treating her like that, but now Derek hadn’t even bothered to glance at the commotion.

  Hearing the engines change pitch as the jet descended, she braced her hands against the rest room’s walls. Moments later, with the slightest of bumps, the jet landed. Whatever Derek had in mind, it wouldn’t be long now. She prayed that he wouldn’t keep demonstrating his contempt by staying away from her. Her plan depended on getting close enough to talk to him.

  The harsh light in the rest room made her look as sick as she felt. The bruise on her jaw, from when Ramirez had punched her, was alarming. If there’s ever been a time when I need to look good, she warned herself, this is it. A sink drawer contained basic cosmetics. Hearing voices in the main cabin (probably immigration officials checking the plane), she hurriedly tried to make herself presentable. Trembling, she washed her face, removing the specks of dried blood. She did the best she could with her hair, applied powder to the bruise on her jaw, and used a little lipstick, her lower lip stinging when she put pressure on it.

  The door was yanked open.

  Potter glared. “Move.”

  She didn’t give him time to repeat the order. Veering past him, she headed along the aisle. She did her best to hide her nervousness, to look as confident as if she were still in Derek’s good graces. But her determination faltered when she saw only bodyguards and not Derek waiting at the exit.

  As she went down the steps toward the tarmac, she paid little attention to the sweet smell of the sea, even though she knew she should savor it — she might never experience it again. She couldn’t let anything distract her. The helicopter was already warming up. She had a sense of events moving terribly fast. With bodyguards on each side and in back of her, she was herded toward the open hatch, and in another sign of how much had changed, no one offered to help her in. She climbed up, hoping to get Derek to look at her. She failed, but she did manage to take the seat next to him before a bodyguard claimed it.

  For a moment, she was afraid that Derek would change seats, but the bodyguards took the others, leaving only one in back, which Potter, his expression more dour, sat in. She fastened her safety harness. The hatch was closed. Aggravating the uneasy sinking feeling in her stomach, the helicopter took off.

  Except for the muffled roar of the engines, the compartment was silent.

  “I had a strange dream,” she said to Derek, not looking at him.

  He stared ahead, giving no indication that he had heard.

  She waited a moment, trying to seem confused. “I was falling.”

  Again no r
esponse.

  As the helicopter rose into the darkness of the hills, she concentrated to remember everything as vividly as she could. The locked room next to Derek’s bedroom. The portraits of his other wives. The photographs of Derek’s sister. The details in them. The scrapbook.

  Derek’s sister had died on June 10.

  A newspaper on the plane had been dated June 8.

  “It wasn’t like the usual nightmare about falling,” she said. “Where everything’s dark and you don’t know where you’re falling. This was almost like it was really happening.”

  The muffled rumble of the helicopter’s engines filled the silence. Her heart pounded so hard that she thought it would burst. She’d pushed what she needed to say as much as she dared. If Derek didn’t respond …

  “Falling?” Derek’s voice was so subdued it took her a moment to realize that he’d spoken and to figure out the word.

  “Onto a street.” She remembered the death certificate had said that Christina died at 3:00 A.M. “It was night. But I saw streetlights and the headlights of a car and lights in some windows. The reflection on the pavement rushed toward me. Then I hit, and other kinds of lights exploded in my head, and I woke up.”

  “Falling,” Derek said.

  “The pain when I hit was … ” She lapsed into silence.

  Thirty seconds.

  A minute.

  I failed, she thought.

  “And where were you falling from?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Was that not in the dream?” he asked.

  “A railing.” She paused as if trying to come to terms with the detail. What she said next was full of puzzlement. “On a balcony.”

  And now, at last, Derek turned and assessed her.

  “A balcony,” he said.

  “Of a hotel.” She shuddered and looked at him, searching his eyes, trying to establish emotional contact. “I could feel my insides rush up. It was like it was really happening.”

  “A balcony.”

  Lights glowed in a valley ahead.

  The pilot identified himself to the compound. He got permission to come in.