by Earl Merkel
Now she was nude. Deborah looked at Beck as if it was his turn to act.
“For what we had,” she said, “for what we lost.”
And he reached for her.
Deborah stepped close to his chair. They kissed deeply, and Beck felt her hand move to the hardness that strained against his pants. Soon she drew his right hand to her left breast, holding him hard against her. His other hand stroked and explored, pleasuring her in slow circles timed to their shared, rising excitement. Finally she rose and worked at his belt buckle. Soon she had pushed aside all that stood between their two bodies.
Her scent, her feel, her taste overwhelmed Beck’s every sense. Deborah pressed him back and moved over him, her feet planted on either side of the chair. She reached between their bodies, grasping, guiding his hardness into a place of heat and tightness. Beck’s body trembled as he slipped deep inside.
She rocked her hips, stroking, teasing. He leaned back in the chair, his thighs straining to match her rhythm.
She rose and fell, the fine muscles of her body rippling with the force of her effort as Beck moved in and out of her. His hands moved along her spine—stroking lightly here, grasping hard there. When they kissed, their tongues fenced in quick, darting thrusts and parries.
Near the end, he pulled back to look at Deborah’s face. Her eyes were closed tightly, her head twisting convulsively from side to side. The sounds she made were soft and wordless and increasingly urgent. It was a prayer of need and wonder, chanted just under her breath. Her hips churned against him in a dance as old as human longing.
“Oh. Oh . . .” Suddenly she tensed, her face twisted in a rictus that could have been pain or pleasure. She gripped Beck inside her like a hot, silky fist, and he could feel the intensity build throughout her body. For a long moment, she was lost in the sensations, her body almost vibrating. Then her orgasm rippled and swelled and burst upon them both.
She stared sightlessly into Beck’s eyes as she came, a strained keening rising from deep in her throat. Her entire body shuddered as if possessed, and that drew him too over the precipice. Beck groaned loudly as he felt his own climax flood into her. He pulled her close, pulsing in wave after white-hot wave.
“Yes.” Deborah’s voice was breathy and wild, and another massive explosion convulsed her. Then, as if sliding down a long, dark incline, she fell against Beck’s chest, spent. The mad hammering of her heart matched the pounding of his own. They clung to each other like that for several minutes, as their breathing slowly eased. Soon, she shifted slightly on Beck’s lap and he felt himself slip out of her.
Only then did he feel the chill of the air on his flesh. Deborah’s weight, slight as it was, grew oppressive against his thighs. Beck became aware of a sweaty itch wherever her flesh touched his; for the first time since Deborah had entered his room, he felt the dull ache of his wound pulsing in his leg. Outside, a distant siren faded into the anonymous sounds of the night. He fought a sudden desire to look at his wristwatch.
In the postcoital coldness, Beck held the woman he had once loved, and who had once loved him. He felt a clarity of mind that had eluded him since all this began. During that time, he had been waiting, though for what he did not know.
With a sense of profound loss, he realized what he had understood all along. Something was missing in him, in his character—perhaps it had been torn from him in Russia, by the torturer’s art. Perhaps, he thought with something akin to horror, it had never been in him at all.
He could not bear to be alone, but he could not bear to be with anyone else. He wondered, not for the first time, if he had gone mad.
Deborah felt the difference in him. She rose and moved away, but not before kissing Beck’s ear softly. Or perhaps sadly.
“Sex was never the problem we had, was it?” she asked, and there was regret in her voice. “We were always good together that way.”
They dressed with their backs to each other.
She was halfway out the door when Beck spoke.
“Deborah,” he said, “thank you for coming here tonight.”
She stopped and looked at him as if seeing him for the last time.
“If I hadn’t, it never would have happened,” Deborah said. “You realize that, don’t you? No matter how much you may have wanted it. You’ve diminished yourself, Beck; you’ve become almost completely passive.”
“That’s not true—” he began.
“You’ve turned into a spectator to your own life,” she said with a flat finality. “Why are you so compelled to . . . toaccept whatever happens, Beck? I can understand that you killed off your intellect—perhaps it deserved to die, after the way you had used it for all those years. But when did you lose your soul?”
His face roiled and clouded; as Deborah had always been able to do, she read Beck’s thoughts as if he had voiced them.
“It’s not what they did to you in Russia, Beck. It’s what you allowed to happen afterward. You’ve given up, on yourself and everything else. I don’t think you even know who you are anymore. For God’s sake, Beck—come back to life, or it will kill you.”
Abruptly, she turned away and opened the door.
“I want you to know”—he swallowed, recognizing the inadequacy of the words—“that I’m very, very sorry.”
“For what, Beck?” Deborah said, not unkindly. “Do you even know?”
When the door closed, he stared at it for a long time.
Chapter 44
Montgomery, Alabama
July 23
He sat in the darkened suite, in the chair where he and Deborah had spent their lonesome passion. Only when the knock came, for the second time that night, did Beck Casey realize that he had been expecting it.
“It’s not locked, Alexi.”
The door swung open, and filled with a dark, bearlike figure.
“Do I interrupt anything, my friend?” In the doorway, Alexi Malenkov’s face was split by a wide grin; he managed to look both lewd and gregarious at the same time. “I certainly hope so.”
He lifted his hand, and Beck heard the tinkle of glass against metal.
“I heard movement in the hallway, Beck. Being paranoid, both by nature and by profession, of course I looked. You have reconciled with Deborah? I have come to celebrate with the two of you!”
“She left. Keep your voice down, Alexi.”
Alexi nodded, suddenly crestfallen.
“Of course. I perhaps misinterpreted. This business with Katie must be a terrible strain on her—on you both. Have you any word?”
“No. Deborah intends to go inside the Quarantine Region and look for her.” He looked steadily and calmly at the Russian. “Frankly, I haven’t been able to figure out what I should do. Not even when my daughter’s life is an issue. Isn’t that odd, Alexi?”
Alexi entered, closing the door behind him. Beck watched him cross the small room and set a bottle on the dining table. The Russian reached into the pocket of the linen jacket he wore and produced stemmed champagne flutes. There were only two of them, Beck noticed.
“We can, perhaps, ask Deborah to join us later,” Alexi said. “Her room, I believe, is only down the hall a little way. Perhaps we can formulate a plan together.” He shook his head. “What a day we have had, my friend.”
“Why are you here, Alexi?”
“I could not sleep, so I thought to join you. Such sadness, this filthy thing to have been done to your Ms. O’Connor.”
“No. I mean, why are youhere. In Alabama.”
Alexi raised his eyebrows. “As I told you. To assist you, to stop this assassin Ilya.”
Beck nodded thoughtfully.
“You want to open that champagne, Alexi? I think you’re right—we should have a drink together.”
Alexi grinned, and turned to the task. There was the metallic rustle of foil being peeled back, and a soft grunt of exertion. Then the pop of a cork, followed by the hiss of carbonation pouring into crystal.
He handed one of the flutes to Be
ck, and raised his own in salute.
“To luck, Beck. Your Katie will be found, and she will be well.”
“Not to luck, Alexi. I don’t think luck has been involved with any of this.”
“I am the Russian here, Beck. It is I who should make such enigmatic statements.”
Beck laughed softly in turn.
“Forgive me, Alexi. I guess I’m not being a good host. This is the first chance I’ve had to think clearly since all this began. Maybe longer.”
“It is understandable. And what have you been thinking, my friend?”
“For one thing, how easy it was to assign the guilt,” Beck said. “I’m supposed to be the expert on terrorism, and all of us ‘experts’ have been warning that extremist groups were the biggest threat we faced these days. Particularly when it comes to biological terrorism. It was inevitable, we said. One day, some cult would use a bioweapon to attack a major power.”
“It is a logical assessment.” Alexi shrugged. “I do not think one need be a prophet to predict this.”
“My point exactly.” Beck nodded. “And the Aum—well, you couldn’t invent a better villain. Ofcourse they were responsible; ofcourse they did it because they were religious fanatics. How easy it was to accept: the Aum had an end-of-the-world mind-set, as well as the charismatic leader who believed he was a god.”
“Do not forget, my friend—they also had the demonstrated ability to wage biological warfare. These zealots have previously acted on their murderous fantasies.”
Incongruously, Alexi chucked. “To act as a god—for some, perhaps this is the same as tobe God.” He peered closely at Beck’s expression. “Ah. You do not think so.”
“The majority of the Aum are followers,” Beck said. “Follow the leader: that’s the nature of such groups. That’s why it was so simple to get them to commit mass murder. And, later, mass suicide. Asahara is in prison, awaiting execution. So what ‘god’ were the rank and file taking orders from?”
“They had their sensei,” Alexi said. “Their so-called teachers, who led them to these acts.”
“Teachers, or teacher?” Beck asked. “In Japanese, the word means both singular and plural.”
“Yes.” Alexi’s voice had become impatient. “And if any Aum still lived, we could ask them. Perhaps this man Ilya is a sensei, or the Sensei. Or perhaps he too is a follower, and these teachers died by their own hands. What is the point, Beck? They are all dead.”
“Nicely put, Alexi. You see, that’s part of my problem. The Aum are dead. The man they used in your country—Davidovich, I mean; the same person our CIA had employed as a Russian agent—he’s dead, too. All these people, the ones who might be able to provide answers of their own—they all seem to be dead, Alexi.”
“Less than three hundred kilometers from us, many more people are dead, or soon will be.” Alexi flushed. “My apologies—I do not mean that your daughter—”
“It’s all right, Alexi. But I can’t think about Katie right now. Not if I want to think clearly. You understand that, I believe.”
Alexi nodded. His eyes watched the other man closely, though whether in concern or something else, Beck could not tell.
“Today, April O’Connor died. Just as I would have, if you hadn’t entered at that very moment. And pulled me away.”
“You were quite fortunate, but I am no hero,” Alexi said, his tone trying to lighten the mood. “It was too late for me to go back outside. Had you opened the inner door to your friend, the gas would have killed me too.”
“I certainly understand enlightened self-interest, Alexi,” Beck said. “Bottom line, then. The Aum created a doomsday virus. They passed some of it along to militias in America, possibly in Russia. Then they killed themselves.”
“It is quite a simple story, my friend.”
“You’ve told me that before,” Beck said agreeably. “Just as you recently reminded me not to look for logic in an illogical act. I forgot that. I let myself be carried along by the events, the story as it unfolded. I didn’t look for anything else.”
“You saw what existed. There was nothing else to see.”
Beck rubbed his eyes. “So you say. Just as you said that Davidovich was Aum. Just as you said that this Ilya is also Aum. You told me that the virus was brought into Russia by a mysterious Japanese man. And earlier today, after April died, you were certainly quick to conclude that Ilya was responsible. You see, it never even occurred to me to wonder how he knew we were here—let alone how Ilya knew April O’Connor’s name. It was printed on the package, you know.”
Beck looked up, and saw Alexi Malenkov watching him with eyes that were carefully hooded.
“Yes,” the Russian agreed. “That is a mystery, is it not?”
“I just . . . went along with what you were saying. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, haven’t I?”
Beck smiled at Alexi politely. “You have certainly become a central person in this story, Alexi. As I sat here, tonight, it occurred to me: most of what I know about any of this has come fromyou . Were I a less trusting person, I might start to worry about that.”
Alexi reached forward, patting Beck on his knee as an adult might placate a child. Then he stood and stretched. “You are tired, my friend. And worried about your daughter. In such a state, it is too easy to see conspiracies everywhere. It is a very human reaction.”
“Right on all counts, Alexi. You see, once again you have framed everything for me, quite logically. Accept the premise, and the conclusion is inescapable. You have convinced me that only one conclusion is possible.”
Alexi looked genuinely puzzled. “And what is that, Beck?”
“That you are the one the Aum called Sensei,” Beck said.
Chapter 45
Montgomery, Alabama
July 23
There was a moment when neither man moved, nor made a sound. Then a slow smile spread over the Russian’s features, finally culminating in what to Beck looked like a guileless grin.
“What am I to do now, my friend?” Alexi asked genially. “Am I to gasp in shock and fear—or to produce a pistol and demand from you how you learned this? I will do one or the other, of course, if you insist. I have always had a weakness for bad theater.”
“No need,” Beck said. “Just tell me why.”
Alexi nodded sagely.
“Ah—you wish the denouement, the melodramatic confession of the guilty party. You make an irrational accusation, Beck; perhaps you do not even recognize how absurd it sounds. Why should I humor you in this foolishness?”
“It’s just the two of us here, Alexi. Who else is there to tell? Besides, didn’t you come in here to kill me anyway?”
Alexi studied him for a moment, as if considering what expression to paint on his own face. Then he threw back his head and laughed, delighted.
“Ah—thisis the Beck Casey I knew from before. So quiet, but such brilliant leaps of insight! I wish I had your gift. Tell me truly: had you really left the CIA?”
“I had, before this—beforeyou —brought me back.”
Alexi chuckled, a rueful sound. “Beck, Beck. It seems I have worked very hard to accomplish the exact opposite of what I intended. Perhaps you have earned the right to knowmy truth.”
He reached into his side pocket and withdrew a knife, its naked blade serrated and similar in length to the one that another Russian had plunged into Beck’s thigh. He casually placed it on the table near the champagne bottle, within easy reach.
“I have worried about you, my friend. Forgive me, but you had become quite a boring companion. You were so . . .compliant. Malleable.”
“Yes,” Beck said. “Deborah said the same thing. She said I had become passive—a spectator.” He spread his hands amiably. “So tell me a story, Alexi. Tell methis story.”
“Very well. Where shall I start?”
“The virus. You lied to me. It was Russian-made.”
Alexi shook his head. “No. In that, I was quite forthright. This doomsday vir
us was the product of a man named Anji Suzuki. He was a biogeneticist and a member of the Aum, though his recruitment into the group was somewhat . . . brutish. May I smoke?”
Beck nodded, and watched as Alexi produced the flat package of Russian cigarettes and lit one with a battered Ronson lighter. He blew the plume of bluish smoke skyward in obvious satisfaction.
“Ah. Anji Suzuki. The psychoactive drugs you received when you were a guest of ourMafiya —do you remember them? I doubt Dr. Suzuki did; his treatment was weighted much more heavily toward electrotherapy, which I understand creates a significant detriment to short-term memory.”
Beck frowned. “He was kidnapped? Brainwashed?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Alexi said. “He had needed skills and no close family. It is not difficult, as you know. The Aum are—were—quite adept at eliciting what they called an Enlightenment. The trick, as I understand the matter, is to alter the personality—the part of the mind that contains all the small quirks that makes one an individual—without destroying the mind itself.”
Alexi pursed his lips mock sadly. “A pity, Beck. Suzuki was quite a talented geneticist. Afterward, I arranged for him to receive an intensive—let us call it a tutorial—at my country’s bioweapon development center in Omutninsk. This instruction allowed him to stand on the shoulders of giants in the field of biological weaponry, and greatly simplified his own work on the influenza virus.”
“He’s dead, I assume.”
Alexi shrugged, a casual gesture.
“How did you get the virus to America, Alexi? Did your Aum create another zombie for that, too?”
Alexi smiled, pleased.
“Such a colorful term. No, Anji volunteered for that task. A quite dedicated person, Beck—a zealot. He disappeared shortly after he arrived in your country on his last visit. It seems likely that he was killed by our mutual acquaintance, Ilya. He succeeded only in spreading the infection to Florida.”
“Katie is in Florida,” Beck said. “My daughter, Alexi.”
“In truth, Beck, the outbreak in Florida was a surprise to me. The plan called for poor Anji to fly across your country—disembarking, of course, in selected cities along the way. The hub cities of your major airlines.”