Eden in Winter

by Richard North Patterson

  Adam tensed – the information they wanted was necessary to an assault plan. ‘All that’s fine,’ he answered. ‘But if this is a trap, they’ll be more than glad to give it to us.’

  ‘We know that. At the next meeting, you’ll give him a surveillance device disguised as a rock, which contains a box that picks up telephone calls or voices and relays them to N.S.A. in the States. You’ll have it by this afternoon. Make sure this guy knows the equipment is valuable, then ask him to plant it near where he says they’re keeping Bergdahl. If he sells it, then we know he’s slippery or a double. If he plants it, then we’ll see whether there are any voices we can match to known Al Qaeda people. We may even pick up clues as to whether they’re actually hiding someone.’

  Adam gazed out the window in the direction of Pakistan, the no-man’s-land where any assault force would have to go. ‘But if he’s working for Al Qaeda or the Taliban, and not just a scammer, he might do that just to set us up.’ He hesitated, thinking as he spoke. ‘Of course, that would expose the colonel to a lot of danger. If he’s selling us to the Taliban, he’d have to think his own neck was on the chopping block. So either this Afghan is legitimate, or he’s doubling the colonel and us.’

  Hollis laughed softly. ‘Yeah, that’s where we wound up. So get your new friend going, quickly. When he’s done, we’ll figure out what to do.’

  Adam hung up, his own misgivings a knot in the pit of his stomach. He wondered how much of this was due to Carla Pacelli, and whether his effectiveness was already compromised. Wanting to live could kill.

  Typing a last cursory paragraph, he hit the Send button.

  FOUR

  Head bent over her unfinished dinner, Carla lapsed into a half-conscious reverie, her thoughts like shadows in the candlelight.

  Even in the dregs of her addiction, she had never felt this solitary. She had known in an instant that her spotting might precede a miscarriage – her mother’s accounts of the five heartbreaking losses preceding her own birth, a prelude to telling the teenaged Carla what a miracle she was, had darkened every day of her pregnancy. But the rushed visit to her doctor had confirmed her fears.

  A trim, pleasant man in his forties, Dr Dan Stein had an easy way of talking, meant to mute his patients’ anxieties. But there was no changing his admonition. ‘You’re at risk of a miscarriage,’ he told her after closing his office door. ‘But there are things you can do to help – no sex, no strenuous activity, as little moving around as you can manage. If possible, I suggest you go someplace where all you do is loll in bed.’

  Sitting across from him, Carla thought of her mother, and then her father. ‘Not possible. And a long plane flight would be risky, wouldn’t it?’

  The doctor nodded. ‘Your job is to take this baby as close to term as you can. We’re pretty good at dealing with premature births – especially if we can get you to Boston before delivery. In the meanwhile, do you have someone who can do your shopping and drive you to appointments?’

  Once again, Carla realized how isolated she was. She had come to Martha’s Vineyard to heal herself, not to seek the company of others; with the baby’s father dead, and Adam gone, the only people she saw with any frequency were fellow alcoholics at A.A. meetings. ‘I can find someone,’ she said at length.

  The doctor considered her a moment. ‘There’s something else,’ he ventured. ‘I want to give you an ultrasound and send the results to a specialist.’

  Carla sat straighter. ‘Is there some problem with the baby?’

  He’s not a baby yet, she imagined Stein thinking. ‘I’m certainly not saying that, Carla. This is a precaution.’

  ‘So what is it that worries you?’

  The doctor tilted his head slightly – in his body language, Carla had discerned, a signal of unease. ‘Nothing, yet. Your spotting could simply reflect the difficulties your mother had, back when foetal care wasn’t nearly this advanced. But it could also suggest a potential anomaly. For your sake, I’d like to rule that out.’

  Mute, Carla nodded. Unable to look at him now, she gazed at the tile floor.

  ‘Just take care of yourself,’ Stein said gently, then felt compelled to add, ‘If you feel the baby isn’t moving, please call me right away.’

  Carla had made it to the car before she felt tears in her eyes. We’ll make it, she had promised her son. No matter what’s wrong, I’ll take care of you.

  *

  Two mornings later, Adam and Hamid headed into the harsh terrain of Afghanistan’s south-eastern borderlands – parched, tan, and dusty – on a rock-strewn road Adam had chosen over a better one. With every jolt, Hamid grunted his disapproval.

  ‘You’re getting soft,’ Adam told him. ‘What would your forefathers say?’

  Hamid shot him a sour look. ‘My forefathers,’ he rejoined, ‘cut the heads off British soldiers and used them to play polo. Consider yourself fortunate.’

  Adam grinned at this. ‘I’m already an organ donor,’ he said. ‘But you can take the rest.’ Lapsing into silence, he acknowledged the bitter truth beneath his companion’s jibe: someday soon, like the foreigners before them, the Americans would leave, and those who helped them would be left to face their enemies alone.

  They drove on like this for miles, braking to avoid jagged stones that could shred their tyres to ribbons. Now and then, Hamid spoke of his young son, a gifted athlete, or the baby daughter for whom, unlike many Afghans, he desired a decent education. But that, too, depended on a fate America was unlikely to affect. The thought made Adam pensive. Not for the first time, he reflected that Hamid was his only friend in this place – or, at least, the only person outside his case officer who knew what Adam did. Through his aviator sunglasses, the film of dust on the windshield turned the undulating terrain a deeper brown. He could feel the Glock concealed beneath his Afghan shirt.

  ‘I assume someone is watching us,’ Hamid remarked. ‘Friends, for a change.’

  ‘Several of them. They’ll radio us when they spot our new friend’s truck.’

  At last they saw the huge rock formation Adam had charted, and laboured toward it, up the side of a steep hill. Hamid pulled up behind it, concealing their S.U.V. from anyone on the road. ‘Now we wait,’ Adam said.

  Shaded by the rock, Adam and Hamid leaned their backs against it, sharing lukewarm water from a canteen. They did not bother to watch the road; other men, concealed in the hills above, did that for them. ‘This is the life,’ Adam said. ‘Manly work in the great outdoors.’

  Hamid did not smile. ‘Can we trust this man, I wonder?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘Either way, it’ll be a surprise.’

  The radio on his belt crackled. ‘Your man is coming,’ a voice said in Pashto. Leaving Hamid, Adam came out from behind the rock, backpack slung over his shoulder, and saw a white Toyota truck spewing dust on the tortuous road. Knees bent, he edged down the hillside, gun in hand, and stationed himself in the path of the truck. It stopped two feet in front of him.

  As Adam had instructed, one of Hakeem’s sons was driving. Walking to the driver’s side, Adam told him, ‘Drive one kilometre down the road. Then stop and pull up the hood, like your truck is broken down. Wait there for your father.’

  Hakeem got out, his seamed face and narrowed eyes betraying no emotion. ‘Come with me,’ Adam directed, and led him away from the rock formation that concealed Hamid and their Jeep. They reached a ravine cut into the hillside, invisible from the road, but not to those who watched them from above. Scrambling to the bottom, the two men were alone.

  Adam put away his gun. ‘Thank you for this meeting,’ he said courteously. ‘Have you brought me what I need?’

  Briefly, the Afghan glanced up at the hills beyond, as though aware they were being watched. Instead of answering, he drew a parcel from inside his shirt and placed it in Adam’s hand.

  Opening it, Adam studied its contents: a precisely drawn map of a village, specifying the structure where Al Qaeda supposedly held the P.O.W; a credible sketch of t
he house from various angles, showing the windows and describing its features – apparently, the only door swung inwards. The last document, a photograph that appeared to have been taken surreptitiously, showed two men who looked less like Pakistanis than Saudis, standing in front of the nondescript hut.

  Unslinging his backpack, Adam put the parcel inside. ‘You’ve done well.’

  Still silent, the Afghan watched expectantly, waiting for payment. Instead, Adam took what appeared to be a rock from the backpack, and placed it in the Afghan’s hand.

  Hakeem eyed it suspiciously, then spoke at last. ‘What is this?’

  ‘American magic,’ Adam responded. ‘This rock can hear voices. I want you to place it beside the house where they’re holding the American.’

  The Afghan’s gaze flickered. ‘How will I do that?’

  ‘I leave that to you. But the deed is worth four times what I’m paying you today.’ He paused for effect. ‘This rock is also a secret of our government, and extremely valuable. If our enemies knew such a device existed, they’d want it very badly. You cannot lose it.’

  The Afghan simply stared at him, surveillance device in hand. Adam took a stack of American money from his backpack, bound by rubber bands. ‘Five thousand dollars,’ he said. ‘Count it if you like.’

  Hakeem inclined his head, as though to acknowledge the size of his reward. ‘I will do my best,’ he said in the same laconic manner. Adam tried imagining him as a dinner-time companion.

  There was nothing left to do. Hakeem departed first, beginning the long walk to meet his son. Adam waited for a time. Then he climbed out of the ravine, followed by his own misgivings.

  FIVE

  With first light, Carla went to the deck with a cup of decaffeinated coffee.

  At this hour, the world looked fresh and newly made, as awesome as Creation. Fall had long since come – the morning air was crisp and cool, and the light arrived at an angle. But the dewy grass glistened with green, and the ocean emerging from the dawn was a vast, shimmering aqua. Too long preoccupied with herself and the pressures of her career, Carla had become a noticer again, savouring the tranquil beauty that had been Adam’s birthright on this island, whatever else he had inherited.

  She thought again of his email, a welcome distraction from her worries for the child she carried. Recalling his description of Ben, she imagined the boy he had been before time and circumstance had hardened him. Then her thoughts returned to the dangers facing her own son.

  The waiting felt unbearable. She had never lived well with uncertainty – a residue, no doubt, of too many nights spent in her darkened bedroom, fearing the sound of her father’s return. Since her visit to the doctor, she had not been to an A.A. meeting, and an ineradicable part of her craved the oblivion that alcohol could bring her, numbing her anxieties. At this moment, she felt that only her child, the source of these fears, stood between her and the reckless woman who had spiralled downward in a mindless, bottomless dark. It scared her to know how much she depended on a being who – should he live – was entitled to depend on her completely, the way she could never depend on her mother and father. Even now, she was everything to him. But without this child who would she be?

  Instinctively, she fingered her mother’s rosary beads, as cool as sand pebbles in the chill sea air.

  Her mother had visited her at Betty Ford, mystified by what Carla had no heart to explain. All Mary Margaret Pacelli could do was press these beads into her daughter’s hands – as though acknowledging, as she always had, her own limitations in the face of her husband’s rages, Carla’s self-destruction. Carla had found the gesture at once sad and pointless, a melancholy echo of a stunted past, a faith Carla had shed in her angry haste to leave it all behind. In her mind, women who prayed the rosary were gnarled old crones or, like her mother, had found their lives too overwhelming to cope. But now Carla was one of them. And this morning these beads, and the fragments of prayer they summoned, were all she seemed to have.

  At once Carla rebuked herself – she had yet to ask for help. Her sponsor was recording a new album in Los Angeles, and she barely knew the others at A.A. Her food was running low, and someone should expect a call were she seized with new contractions. But she could always call 911, she had rationalized – the reflex of a loner, who believed that to speak her fears to a stranger would make them come true.

  She closed her eyes, aware that her prayers for Adam and her son were an inversion of her childhood hopes that her father would perish. Her prayers felt better now. The beads in her hand were somehow reassuring, the words more comforting.

  ‘Hail Mary, full of grace. Blessed are thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb …’

  Before her downfall, repeating this would have aroused something she still felt deeply – anger at the male hierarchy of the Church, the autocracy of men insulated from life, and the lives of women, by their own narrow holiness. Instead she focused now on the visit of the young, pregnant Mary to her older cousin Elizabeth, blessed with a surprising gift of her own pregnancy. These last weeks, Carla had experienced this same mystery, strange and secret and inexplicable to others, communing in silence with her invisible child, unknown to everyone else but so palpable to her, whose very existence seemed a miracle. Which was why her mother had named her miraculous daughter Carla Elizabeth Pacelli.

  Lost in the rosary, she imagined the stirring of the baby inside her, still alive. It took a moment to recognize the hollow but very real sound echoing through the guesthouse: a fist knocking on her door. For an irrational moment, she imagined that it was Adam Blaine, returned in answer to her prayers.

  Rising gingerly, she walked through the house and opened the door. Framed in the morning light was a tall, pale man in his late thirties, slender yet sinewy, with black curly hair, a full mouth, and a thin, sensitive face. Though they were different in appearance, even had she not glimpsed him at the courthouse Carla would have known that he was Adam’s brother. In her surprise, she thought Teddy a more handsome version of Adam’s father, Jack. Then she reminded herself that Teddy still believed that Adam was Ben’s son.

  In momentary silence, they studied each other. Then she said, ‘You’re Adam’s brother. The artist.’

  The hint of a bleak smile touched one corner of Teddy’s mouth. ‘The “gay artist”, our father used to call me. The first word damned the second. Anyhow, Adam asked me to check in with you – to see if there’s anything you need.’

  Even had Teddy not alluded to his bitter resentment of Benjamin Blaine, his tone captured the oddity of their circumstances. Carla hesitated, then said, ‘Why don’t you come in?’

  Teddy’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You sure? If you’re like half the people on this island, which I expect you are, you still think I pushed him off the cliff. And, unlike a lot of them, no doubt you’re unhappy with me for it – enough to wish me a life in prison. When it comes to selecting good Samaritans, Adam has peculiar tastes.’

  Nor for the first time, Carla suspected that Adam knew much more about Ben’s death than he was willing to say – perhaps that the man in front of her was guilty of murder. Tartly, she answered, ‘I’m willing to assume you’ve bagged your quota for the year. In any event, I’m sure I’m not your favourite person.’

  ‘You weren’t,’ he responded bluntly. ‘But Adam’s my brother, and I promised him. In his estimate, you did us all a good turn when you didn’t need to. So I’m willing to leave hating you to my mother.’

  Though his candour was unsettling, there was something about it Carla found bracing. ‘Come on in,’ she said, and waved him to the couch where, only weeks before, Adam had spent the night. The juxtaposition felt strange. As she settled back into a chair, Carla noticed him glancing at her stomach, swelling beneath her sweater.

  He leaned forward a little, openly curious, his tone neutral. ‘It’s all pretty strange, I have to say. I get it about you and our father – no surprises there. But you and Adam is where my imagination begins to fla
g.’

  Even his most acidic comments, Carla was noticing, had a trace of deflective humour – perhaps the weapon of a man who, though in different ways than Adam, had been hurt early in life. With a dryness of her own, she replied, ‘Don’t let your imagination run wild – I’m pregnant, after all. I think your brother just likes babies. Never too late to discover your inner Mr Rogers.’

  To Carla, her own remark sounded cheap and tinny. Before Teddy could respond, she amended, ‘Truthfully, I think he identifies with this baby – as though he wants things to turn out better for him than he thinks it did for the two of you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be hard,’ Teddy said more softly. ‘Even I can wish that much.’

  In her tenuous emotional state, Carla found that even this modest kindness caused her eyes to dampen before she looked away.

  ‘What is it?’ Adam’s brother asked.

  Some impulse she could not name caused Carla to respond, ‘The doctor tells me I may miscarry. I’m sure that doesn’t strike you as a tragedy. It certainly wouldn’t disappoint your mother.’

  Teddy simply studied her. ‘Then why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Maybe because you’re Adam’s brother and there’s no one else to tell.’ She steadied her voice. ‘I’m not supposed to do very much, including shopping and errands.’

  Teddy settled his lanky frame back into the couch, regarding her with a quizzical look. ‘If you’re asking me to shop for groceries, no worries. I shop for myself anyhow. Both you and I seem to have lost our partners.’

  Despite the arid allusion to Ben’s death, Carla felt a rush of gratitude. ‘If you don’t mind, I can give you money and a shopping list.’

  ‘We can sort out the money later,’ Teddy responded. ‘Thanks to you, I’ll have money of my own – despite my father’s best intentions.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Just out of curiosity, how did you put up with him? Was there someone inside there I didn’t know?’