Whirlpool

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Surely,” the jeweler said, “you can understand that we normal mortals are less impressed with the problems of the immortal and the near-immortal among us.”

  Hudson chuckled softly, but without amusement. “So your colleagues told you about my medical treatments.”

  The other man gave a slight shrug. “I’ve known for years. It was not what one might call a state secret, only a matter of idle curiosity and gossip.”

  Davinian glanced at Hudson, trying to see if he was offended.

  Hudson didn’t look up from his tea.

  “Perhaps you should just give the woman, this reporter, what she wants,” the jeweler said. “You have enough money to afford even the most rapacious of gold diggers.”

  “I don’t know what she wants. I’m not even sure she knows what she wants. At first it sounded like money, but then it didn’t. It seemed like she was making up the rules of the game as she went along.”

  “That does not sound like Moscow. Not even the new regime is that foolish. These new boys, they always know what they want. If Claire Toth is indecisive, she is probably playing out of school. Give her a bone and hope she will be satisfied for a time.”

  Hudson was quiet for a while, thinking. Finally he straightened on the bench as though gathering himself to leave. “What about you, Davinian? What am I to do with you?”

  Something in Hudson’s tone surprised the old jeweler. He dropped his chin a few inches and peered at Hudson over the top of his glasses. Hudson stared back, watching intently, looking for…something.

  Davinian felt the chill sink more deeply into the pit of his stomach, into his bony hips, down his spindly legs. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s simple. You’ve gotten too old. You’ve lost your zest for the game of power. That’s what kept us going all those years, the joy of the game. The almost sexual thrill that comes from knowing secrets and using them.”

  Hudson sipped his tea again and glanced at the jeweler’s paper cup, which sat half empty on the bench between them.

  “No more tea?” Hudson asked gently.

  His smile deepened the coldness that Davinian felt. Weakness invaded him, forerunner of an endless night.

  “What have you done?” the jeweler whispered in a strained voice. “I am cold. Did you—”

  The words were interrupted by a sudden burst of chills. Trembling, he wrapped his arms around himself, trying to hold in the warmth that was draining from his body.

  “Me?” Hudson said. “I didn’t do anything. You’re just old.”

  Davinian jerked his head so sharply that his glasses leaped, then settled crookedly on his nose.

  “You’re too old for the stress anymore,” Hudson said. “You really should take better care of yourself. I could arrange for some treatments, just because you’re my old friend.”

  Abruptly, the jeweler shivered in the hot sunlight and slumped against the metal arm at the end of the bench. Then he doubled over in response to the cold that was spreading through him, pushing warmth and life out of his body.

  “You are a m-monster,” Davinian whispered through chattering teeth. “What d-did you use? Tell me! I have a r-right to know how I will die.”

  Sadly Hudson shook his head. “If you continue to act so irrationally, I really will have to leave. I can’t afford to be seen with senile old Armenians and homesick Russian Jews.”

  Davinian tried to respond to Hudson’s soft taunts but couldn’t. A wave of cold like the Russian winter welled up within him. His frail, dying body shook with spasms that were frightening but not painful.

  Without seeming to, Hudson looked carefully around the park. No one seemed to be paying attention to the two men beneath the jacaranda tree. From their casual out-of-date clothes, they might have been old friends reminiscing quietly in the sun. He glanced over at Davinian. For a second he almost felt pity.

  “Is there pain, my friend?” he asked softly. “I was told it would be painless. Consider that my parting gift to you, a death without pain. It’s more than most old men get.”

  Unable to speak, Davinian huddled at his end of the bench. All he could do was clench his chattering teeth and glare with his failing eyes at the man who had killed him.

  Like an old friend saying goodbye, Hudson reached over and touched Davinian on the shoulder. No response.

  Hudson picked up the jeweler’s tea, stood, and walked away. He didn’t look back. There was no reason to. Davinian was part of the impotent, dead past. Hudson was firmly astride the potent, living future.

  Or he would be as soon as he got a handle on Claire Toth.

  33

  Karroo

  Tuesday, noon

  Dressed finally in her own clothes, pleasantly full from a beautifully prepared omelet and fresh fruit, and nerved up on coffee that could have etched steel, Laurel walked to the heavy door of the ambassador’s study. It was open just a crack, enough to show that it wasn’t locked.

  Laurel thought about the coming conversation and decided she should have had less food or more coffee.

  Quit stalling and go on in like Ms. Mendoza told you to. What do you have to lose? Certainly not pride. Cruz took care of that already.

  Hey, the good news is that I’m finally dressed.

  The memory of confronting Cruz in the gym wearing little more than two flimsy layers of cotton made Laurel’s cheeks burn. Without knocking she shoved the heavy door open.

  The room was large, cool, and had no windows. Despite that, there was light everywhere. She closed the door behind her and looked around. All four walls were lined with beautiful display cases. Many of the cases held ancient manuscripts that were either originals or very fine copies. Ranks of freestanding bookshelves were grouped about.

  She recognized English, Latin, French, German, and Russian texts. She didn’t know enough to decide whether the ideographs she saw were Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, or all four. No matter the language, there was enough research material in Redpath’s office to make a university reference librarian drool.

  On one wall hung a backlighted Mercator-style world map that was also an intricate “real-time” clock. The brightest parts of the map represented the parts of the globe that were in daytime. The darker parts were in night.

  On the wall opposite the clock, above an adobe brick fireplace, there was an old life-sized portrait of a bearded Highland Scots chieftain wrapped in a green and black tartan. The Highlander gazed at the world with the most penetrating green eyes Laurel had ever seen. They were vividly alive, and fierce in that life.

  Ambassador Cassandra Redpath rose to her feet behind a cherrywood desk that filled one end of the room. The desk gleamed with a deep polish. The work surface held only three telephones and the large leather-bound book Redpath had been reading when Laurel walked in.

  “How are you, Ms. Swann?” the ambassador asked, setting aside the book. “I understand from Cruz that you had a rather demanding evening yesterday.”

  As Laurel walked closer, she discovered that Cassandra Redpath’s eyes were the same shade of intense green as the Highland chieftain’s—and even more penetrating.

  “I’m coping,” Laurel said coolly, “but I feel like I’ve fallen down the White Rabbit’s hole.”

  “That would make me the Queen of Hearts, then,” the older woman said, smiling slightly.

  “I hope not. Alice didn’t have much luck with that one.”

  Redpath laughed and settled back into her desk chair. “I think we’ll do very well together. Come here and sit down while I describe the world you’ve fallen into.”

  Laurel sensed in the ambassador the same swift intelligence and basic goodwill that had first made her trust Cruz Rowan. Under the circumstances, that wasn’t an entirely comforting thought.

  Cruz had lied to her.

  With a final look around the room, she walked to one of the leather chairs that faced the expanse of desk. As she sat down, she glanced at the oversized leather-bound book that lay open on the desk
. The language was Cyrillic. The color photographs vividly displayed a group of Fabergé creations.

  “You have a remarkable collection of manuscripts,” Laurel said. “I assume they’re originals.”

  “Wherever possible. No matter how meticulous the monks or scribes tried to be, copying introduced errors. If necessary I’ll have an unattainable volume photographed. But the result lacks a certain intangible power that exists in the original.”

  “I’ve seen old volumes and museum-quality manuscripts before,” Laurel said, glancing around again, “but never so many in the hands of a private collector.”

  “I’m a scholar, not a collector.”

  “Even now that you’re no longer an ambassador?”

  “How else do you think I find the time to read?”

  “Cruz said you were in charge of Risk Limited. I don’t see how that would leave much time for research.”

  Redpath folded her hands, rested her chin on them, and watched Laurel without speaking.

  Laurel felt like the ambassador was trying to read her as she would a manuscript whose language wasn’t totally familiar.

  “I run Risk Limited, but I do most of it right from this desk,” Redpath said after a moment. “Cruz and other operators like him do nearly all the fieldwork themselves. They call in from time to time to keep me from worrying too much, but I’ve chosen them for their initiative, ability, and independence. They don’t need me.”

  Laurel remembered something her father had once said and smiled slightly. “Having men like that working for you must be like trying to herd cats.”

  Redpath’s laughter was as vivid as her eyes. “Precisely. So I don’t attempt to herd them. Instead, I pursue my first love.”

  “Ideas,” Laurel said, looking around the room again. “How they change, how they remain the same, how they never quite pass on enough of the unspeakable truth to satisfy us.”

  The ambassador’s intelligent green eyes gleamed with appreciation. She began to understand why Cruz had brought Laurel back with him instead of putting her under guard in some nameless motel.

  Or using her as bait.

  “If all my operators were like Cruz,” Redpath said, “I’d probably never be disturbed at all. He’s very much a loner. It’s his greatest weakness. It’s also his greatest strength.”

  “Hooray for Cruz Rowan,” Laurel said. “God’s gift to the intelligence community.”

  Redpath’s ginger-colored eyebrows rose. “Did Cruz treat you badly?”

  “As in clouting me around or calling me babe or pinching my butt? No.”

  “That’s a relief. For a moment I thought I’d have to find a whip and try my hand at herding cats.”

  Against her will, Laurel smiled.

  “What did Cruz do to you?” Redpath asked.

  “He led me to believe that he was seriously injured saving my life, so I had to drive him to the plane. Then he threatened…”

  Redpath’s gaze sharpened.

  Laurel’s voice died. Cruz hadn’t threatened her.

  Not exactly.

  “He said,” Laurel corrected, “that if I chose not to come with him, he’d conclude I was too stupid to protect myself, and he’d be forced to take appropriate measures. But it was my choice, of course.”

  Her cheeks burned as she remembered her foolish certainty that she was more than a match for the injured Cruz. What was even more humiliating was that he knew her well enough to let her think she was in control of the situation.

  What a joke. On me, of course. I haven’t been in control since the moment Cruz walked into my house. I had a gun on him, and he looked at me like he’d never seen a woman he wanted more.

  She wondered if his dreams last night had been like hers. Restless. She kept remembering how vulnerable he’d looked with his black armor shell removed, revealing his warm flesh and the brutal gouges left by bullets. She kept seeing his male grace in the gym today, a sheen of sweat highlighting his strength. She kept thinking about what it would be like to be the focus of those laser eyes, to feel those big hands caressing her, to make Cruz grimace with pleasure rather than pain….

  You’re a fool. He’s way out of your league. He’s way out of any woman’s league.

  Yet the images of Cruz kept burning like candles in her mind.

  Redpath waited, watching Laurel with the patience of a cat or a chess player.

  “When I told Cruz I’d studied tae kwan do for seven years and he would have a hell of a time carrying me to the plane,” Laurel said distinctly, “he didn’t disagree. But from what I saw today, Cruz could have taken me with a lot less fuss than a cougar takes a rabbit.”

  Though Redpath didn’t smile, the crinkling at the corners of her eyes hinted at her inner laughter.

  “In short, Cruz lied to me,” Laurel said. “I don’t like being lied to like a child. It’s humiliating.”

  “Cruz wasn’t lying.”

  “He sure as hell wasn’t telling all of the truth. Especially about his ribs.”

  “He looked quite sore this morning,” Redpath said.

  “Yeah, right. That’s why he’s frolicking in the gym with a drop-dead handsome black guy who’s doing his best to kick Cruz’s teeth out. Guess who I hope wins.”

  The warmth of the ambassador’s smile surprised Laurel.

  “Do you really think the sergeant-major is handsome?” Redpath asked. “I’ll have to tell him. He’ll be delighted.”

  “Surely the man has a mirror.”

  “Gillie is a little too—shall we say, dangerous-looking?—for most modern women.”

  “Some women like lapdogs.”

  “But you don’t,” Redpath said calmly. “That’s why you followed Cruz.”

  It wasn’t a question, so Laurel didn’t answer.

  “Let me tell you a bit more about the rabbit hole you find yourself in,” the ambassador said. “That way, your choice of whether to stay or to go will come from your intelligence as well as your emotions.”

  “Do I really have a choice?”

  Redpath gave her the kind of look she gave a difficult operative. Then she moved the heavy book from in front of her and settled back in her chair.

  “Risk Limited grew out of my experiences in government,” she said, “but it also grew out of my conviction that we’ve entered a new age in human civilization. The world has become a global village.”

  Laurel glanced at the intricate world map, where the line between daylight and darkness was slowly sweeping across the face of the earth.

  “Exactly,” Redpath said, following her glance. “Without getting up from this chair, I can talk simultaneously to New York, London, and Moscow and receive a fax from Hong Kong in the next room.”

  “Your phone bill must be the size of the national debt.”

  “It would be, if we didn’t own the company. Our communications section put together a system of satellite relays that allows me to speak directly with my operators in the most remote spots on the face of the earth, so long as they can see the sky.”

  “I had a sample of it on the drive here. Very efficient. Cruz put the word out with a vengeance.”

  “Ah, yes. ‘Wear black. He’s expecting you.’”

  Laurel’s eyelids flinched. It still bothered her to hear her father described in terms of the violence he might commit.

  “Technology has changed radically in the last several decades,” Redpath said. “Unfortunately, human beings haven’t. People who want to create rather than destroy are still confronted daily by the same kinds of evil, inertia, and ignorance that have plagued human endeavors throughout history.”

  “‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’” Laurel said.

  Redpath nodded. “Ecclesiastes. More wisdom and less comfort than any other philosophical treatise I’ve ever read.”

  Laurel waited.

  For a moment the ambassador looked at her hands. Then she sighed and focused on her reluctant guest.

  “Civilization needs men like Cruz R
owan,” Redpath said. “Men who are capable of violence and restraint, action and thought. Cruz is one of the most perceptive, tenacious investigators I’ve ever known. He’s a gifted bodyguard. As well as sheer native intelligence, he has sharp reflexes, physical agility, strength, and stamina.”

  Images of Cruz burned in Laurel’s mind, experience, and imagination combined. She shifted uneasily. She’d never been drawn to a man as she was to him.

  It wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

  “In short,” Redpath said, “I require a high level of physical readiness in all my operators, both male and female. Should I ever be tempted to let my emotions override my intellect in this matter, Sergeant-Major Gillespie will point it out to me with great pleasure.”

  Remembering what she’d seen of Gillespie, Laurel didn’t doubt it. The man was formidable.

  “Gillespie was one of the most effective operators in the history of the British Army’s Special Air Services,” Redpath said. “He trained some of the best cadres of counterterrorists in recent history. Here at Risk Limited, he is the unchallenged judge of physical readiness. If he refuses to certify an operator for duty, that operator is off the case, no matter what my feelings on the matter might be.”

  Belatedly, Laurel realized the trap she was being gently led into. She’d planned on using Cruz’s lies as a reason to leave the compound; Redpath was on her way to proving that Laurel was wrong in her view of the situation.

  “Cruz’s injuries were and are real,” Redpath said. “He tore cartilage between two ribs. Right now he is strapped into a corset the likes of which I haven’t seen since my great-grandmother’s time. Every breath is a knife in his side.”

  “He didn’t look it.”

  “Several years ago, Cruz had a crash course in hiding his feelings. It was something he learned all too well.”

  “After he killed the terrorists?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told me.”

  “Did he? Remarkable.”

  Redpath looked at Laurel intently. Then the ambassador continued talking. “With torn cartilage, Cruz could handle communications and other light duty. But he was inflexible about staying on this case. He was even more inflexible about retaining his job as the primary operator. He seems to feel some responsibility for your safety. Some personal responsibility.”