The Warrior

by Sharon Sala

  “Yes, I remember,” he said. “Go to sleep, then. I won’t be far.”

  She nodded, gave him a last, lingering look of what he read as regret, and then left him alone with a kitchen full of dirty dishes.

  He sighed, surveying the mess, then began to clean up in a slow, methodical way. Once he was done, he went to check on her. She was rolled up in a ball on top of her bedspread. The air in the room was cool from the central air-conditioning. He covered her with an afghan and then made himself walk out instead of crawling in beneath the covers with her.

  There was still the issue of setting a trap.

  Richard zipped his suitcase shut, patted his pocket to make sure he had his papers, grabbed the bag and headed down the stairs. Helga was waiting below with his hat and coat. He put on the hat, then let her help him into the coat before heading for the front door.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said. “Just carry on with business as usual.”

  “We will take good care of everything, Herr Schloss. Have a safe trip.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Richard said, knowing that when he came back the next time, he would have undergone yet another physical change. But this one would be permanent.

  He nodded once more to the maid, then stepped aside as she opened the door for him.

  Gustav was outside, waiting beside the car. He loaded the suitcase, then opened the door for his boss.

  “We still have plenty of time to make your flight,” Gustav said.

  “Yes, but I don’t like to arrive late,” Richard said, then got in and settled comfortably into the backseat as Gustav got behind the wheel.

  They drove to the airport without conversation, as was proper between a boss and employee. Upon arrival, Gustav carried Richard’s suitcase to the curb.

  “I’ll call when I’m heading back so you can pick me up,” Richard said.

  “Yes, sir, and do have a safe trip.”

  Richard nodded, then headed for the gate. Within the hour, the plane had begun to board. He made it through every security checkpoint without a hitch. By the time he was in his assigned seat in first class, he was riding a high at how easy it was to deceive.

  The plane took off without incident, and before long, Richard was being served hot coffee and reading the international edition of the New York Times, which he’d purchased in the airport.

  The headline and accompanying story were somewhat startling. Seeing not only his own face but his friend Jacob’s picture, as well, only reinforced what he was planning to do. He couldn’t believe how easily his world of privilege and power had toppled. It seemed impossible to believe that this time last week, he and Jacob were sharing a drink in his office, and now Jacob was dead by his own hand, and Richard was halfway across the world and on the run.

  The approaching flight attendant caught his focus, but only for a moment.

  “Would you care for more coffee?” she asked.

  He nodded, smiling cordially as she topped off his cup and then moved along. He let the coffee cool as he continued to read. By the time he’d finished the article, the coffee was cool enough to drink. The dark, bitter German coffee was an acquired taste, but one he knew he was going to have to get used to.

  When the attendant came back by, Richard stopped her.

  “When do we land in Lucerne?” he asked.

  “In about two hours,” she said as she retrieved his empty cup.

  “Thank you,” he said, then laid the paper aside, leaned his seat back, closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.

  The snow was coming down thick and heavy. The flakes were huge, like down from a duck’s back, but cold—so cold. Blood was oozing from both ears and from the corner of his mouth, and when he inhaled, the sound was like a rattle. He could feel the life force seeping out of him with every breath he took. He was going to die.

  Just like before.

  The memories were vague, but he knew, as well as he knew his own face that they were real. In other lifetimes, he kept dying early, always within sight of achieving greatness, yet failing at the hands of fate or the hands of those he should have been able to trust.

  This time, it was the weather and twelve broken bones that were going to take him out. He was afraid. So very afraid.

  “Don’t leave me,” he pleaded from inside his small tent, reaching out to the others, who had shifted their packs to accommodate what he’d been carrying.

  “We’ll send help,” someone said, and then they were gone.

  The others walked past his tiny tent without looking back—unable to look at the man they were leaving to die alone. But the leader, Trevor, stopped and squatted down and peered into the opening.

  “Trevor, I thought you were my friend.”

  But Trevor just shook his head. “I am your friend, but I’m not God, and He’s the only One who could fix what’s wrong with you. You’re all broken up inside, and you know it.”

  He choked, then exhaled, bringing up a fresh stream of blood that oozed from between his lips and down onto the sleeping bag they’d put him in.

  They’d had no choice—and he’d taken the risk when he’d decided to attempt the climb. Everest was the Holy Grail of mountains. He’d come so close to achieving greatness. Now all was lost because of one misstep and a snowstorm.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said again, but this time the words were sucked up and blown away by the wind.

  “Sorry,” Trevor said. “Maybe in another lifetime, my friend.”

  He watched in horror as Trevor walked away, disappearing into the blowing wall of snow.

  “No!” he screamed, then shuddered as a wave of unbearable pain shot through him like a bolt of lightning.

  Once again he had been abandoned to his fate by people he’d believed he could trust.

  Richard sat up with a gasp. His heart was thumping erratically, and he had the strangest urge to see if he could stand—but of course it was only a dream. His bones weren’t broken. His body was solid and unharmed. Still, he shuddered. The dream had seemed so real.

  A little nauseated, he leaned against the headrest and quietly closed his eyes. He’d had similar dreams his whole life, the theme always the same. He was teetering on the brink of greatness, only to fall short of his goal. And always he was defeated by those he’d thought he could trust.

  Then the cabin light came on, and Richard heard the flight attendant readying the passengers for landing. He smiled with satisfaction, more than ready for what lay ahead.

  While Alicia slept, John spent the next few hours setting up an undetectable series of alarms. He positioned tiny solar-powered lasers that, when tripped by someone passing in front of the beam, would set off a small alarm inside John’s bedroom. There would be no way for anyone to sneak up on the property undetected.

  He had toyed with the idea of packing Alicia up and running again, but from the way things were going, there didn’t seem to be a way to hide without being found. The bottom line was, Alicia was never going to be safe as long as her father was on the run.

  He’d promised to help, and that meant keeping her alive in the process. He wouldn’t let himself think of the consequences of putting Alicia and the nation’s needs ahead of his own. He was weary of the passage of time, and the constant and fruitless hunt. He wanted it over. But once again, it seemed as if the man he sought might die at the hands of others, which did him no good whatsoever.

  Finally he was satisfied that he’d done all he could with regard to security. He gathered up his tools and put them back in the storage shed, then retrieved the binoculars and circled the house, doing a 360-check of the horizon.

  He was going up the steps of the back terrace when he caught a flash of light from the corner of his eye. He turned toward the distant mountains and watched, checking to see if it happened again or if it was just an anomaly. His curiosity was soon rewarded by a second flash, like sunlight reflecting off the windshield of a car—or a pair of binoculars. The only thing was, there were no other houses in that
direction. No roads leading to Sedona. No reason for anyone to be out there—unless they didn’t want to be seen.

  “So…you’re a little ahead of schedule,” he said softly. “But take your time. When you get here, I’ll be waiting.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Alicia asked.

  John jumped, startled by the unexpected sound of her voice,

  “Hey,” he said. “I didn’t know you were awake. Feel better?”

  “Yes, thanks. So…who were you talking to?”

  He glanced toward the mountains. Whoever was out there had moved.

  “Just talking to myself. Comes from living alone.”

  Alicia shaded her eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun for a better look at his face. He was the epitome of stoic. Hard to read. Even harder to communicate with.

  “Why do you?” she asked.

  John frowned. “Do what?”

  “Live alone.”

  He shrugged. “Because it suits me, I guess.”

  “I don’t mean to pry…but how long has it been since…I mean, when was your family…” She sighed. “Crap. Forget it. That’s prying. I’m sorry.”

  She strode back into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.

  John looked toward the mountains. Nothing would happen until after dark, of that he was certain. Whoever was coming would want the element of surprise on his side, and there was no way in hell to come up on this house in daylight and not be seen from miles away. Satisfied that he had some time before all hell broke loose, he followed her inside.

  She was taking a cold can of pop from the refrigerator.

  “Want one?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, and set his binoculars on the counter.

  Alicia eyed them as she poured the soda into glasses, then added some ice. She set one glass in front of him, then took hers to the table. She sat down, took a sip and then pointed to the binoculars.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  John’s eyes narrowed as he took the chair across from her. He wasn’t fooling her one bit.

  “That plane today…”

  “They were looking for me…for us, weren’t they?”

  “I think so.”

  “What did you see out there just now?”

  “Sunlight reflecting off something shiny, most likely glass.”

  “Maybe it was just a car on the road.”

  “There are no roads out there. There are no houses. Nothing leads to anything out there.”

  Her bandaged fingers curled around the glass. She was afraid to ask but needed to know.

  “Was Dieter in that plane?”

  “No. I didn’t recognize either of them, but that means nothing. We didn’t know the man who came at you in D.C., either, but he still found us.”

  “What’s going to happen? Are we leaving here?”

  “I thought about it,” John said. “My instinct is to stay and fight.”

  She leaned back in her chair and let her gaze slide from feature to feature on his face. From that tiny silver feather in his ear to the jut of his chin, the high, chiseled cheekbones and those dark, flashing eyes. He didn’t look like a man accustomed to backing down.

  “I don’t want to be responsible for your death,” she said.

  The urge to confess was strong. But how did a man admit he couldn’t die and not sound like a madman? She was already scared half out of her head. He didn’t want to push her the rest of the way.

  “I’ve been around a very long time and survived some ugly stuff. I’m a hard man to kill.”

  She shivered, remembering the scars on his body and the way the gunshot wounds had closed up almost before her eyes.

  “I’ve thought about that a lot,” she said.

  He grinned wryly. “I can imagine.”

  “So how do you do it, John? How does your body…you know…”

  “I told someone once that I’d studied healing under the Dali Lama. Learned how to heal myself, how to control bleeding.”

  “Did that someone believe you?” she asked.

  “I guess. The conversation ended.”

  She slid her glass around and around in a little circle on the table, leaving wet rings of condensation behind, then paused and looked John straight in the face.

  “Is that the answer I’m going to get, as well?”

  “Pretty much.”

  She sighed. “If I asked you something else…would you tell me the truth?”

  He frowned. “Depends.”

  “Did you know about my father selling weapons illegally before we met?”

  “No. Lord no. Why would you think that?”

  “Well, you said he killed your wife…your family. I thought maybe it was because of the weapons he sold. That he was responsible in that way.”

  John looked away for a few moments, then took a deep breath and made himself face her.

  “It was a long time ago. But I made a promise, a vow that I would find the man who killed them before I died. It’s just taken longer than I imagined, that’s all.”

  “But I don’t understand…were they on foreign soil when—”

  “No. He was the one who didn’t belong. Look. Just let it be. You would never be able to understand.” Then he sighed. “Hell. Sometimes I don’t understand, either.”

  Alicia’s fingers trembled. Her physical attraction to him was so strong that it made her ache. How ironic that she finally met a man she could see spending the rest of her life with and her father was responsible for destroying his family. She pushed her glass aside, then balled her hands in her lap and closed her eyes.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I promise.”

  Alicia shook her head as she looked up. Her eyes were swimming with tears.

  “No. It won’t. The irony of it is that every day I wake up is one day less to live. Whether it’s because I’m just going to grow old and die, or whether my loving father finally ends it for me, won’t change the fact that I’ve gotten myself into a mess from which there is no escape.”

  “You’re talking in riddles,” he said.

  She laughed, but it was not a funny sound. “You should know,” she said, and shoved her chair back from the table and walked out of the room.

  John started to follow her, then stopped long enough to go back and set all the security alarms, including the ones he’d located along the outer perimeter of the property. He wasn’t going to let their conversation end like that, but didn’t want anyone interrupting them unannounced, either.

  As soon as he was satisfied that they were safe, he went to find Alicia.

  Twelve

  Alicia felt sick. She could tell from what John wasn’t saying that he fully expected them to be attacked. And since he wasn’t, at the moment, in any kind of panic, she assumed it would be after dark. So what did that mean? Another night of fear? Another battle to be fought before they could find a safe place to hide for a while? Or was she kidding herself by believing she even had a future? She knew her father better than anyone. She’d seen him at his worst and barely remembered him at his best. Not since she was a small child had there been any tenderness between them, and whatever had been there had died when they buried her mother. It was as if whatever was good and gentle in Richard Ponte had ended with his wife’s death. Afterward, he saw that Alicia was cared for, but he didn’t bother himself with how it happened. It shouldn’t have been surprising, then, that he’d been able to separate his emotions from his need for revenge. No one took down the king—not even the princess who’d sprung from his loins. She was sick and tired of men who kept secrets, and that included John Nightwalker. So when he finally caught up to her and called for her to wait, she snapped.

  She paused in the hallway, then turned. Her hands were curled into fists, and her body was stiff, as if braced for battle. She lifted her chin and glared.

  “Wait? For what? For the next hit man to come calling? Oh…I know. You expect me to wait around while you dangle m
e like a carrot in front of my father’s flunkies in hopes that he’ll get tired of their failures and come on his own.”

  Her accusation hit him like a slap in the face. He’d set aside his own agenda to keep her in one piece, and now this was what he got? He reacted without thinking and grabbed her by the shoulders, then yanked her forward until they were standing eye to eye.

  If Alicia had known him better, she would have realized that the soft tone of his voice was deceptive, and that the grip he had on her shoulders was to keep himself from wringing her neck.

  “I am not using you for bait, and you know it. I’d lay odds that your father isn’t even on this continent, so there’s no chance of him doing anything on his own. But if you’re feeling all that misused and trapped…there’s the door. Start walking. I won’t stop you.”

  His breath was hot on her face. His eyes were blazing. She felt his anger. She should have been afraid, but all she could do was remember him naked and gentle, holding her in his arms. Her fingers uncurled. Walk away—now—before you do something you’ll regret, she told herself. Instead, she reached toward him and cupped his face with her hands.

  “John…”

  He flinched, then grabbed her by both wrists.

  “Woman…”

  Alicia heard the warning in his voice, but it didn’t stop her. “I’m so tired of running. I’m tired of being afraid. I’m not asking you for anything permanent. I just want to forget…even if it’s only for a while.”

  He wanted her. She knew enough about men to see that. But he didn’t love her, and she wasn’t going to waste her energy pining for a man who was locked in the past. But they could use each other for comfort, and right now that was all she wanted.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  He grunted, as if she’d just punched him in the gut, but it was his only hesitation. Suddenly he was pulling her shirt over her head, popping the hook on her bra and yanking her panties and shorts down around her feet. Before she could react, she was in his arms.

  The swift surge of lust that rose in response was painful. She couldn’t remember ever wanting a man this much in her life. Her heart was beating so fast she couldn’t think, and when he kicked open the door to his bedroom and took her inside, she was physically shaking.