“What do you mean, nothing?”
“There is not a single file in his entire computer. Nothing on his hard disk, nothing in the cloud. Is it new?”
“Is what new?”
“The MacBook. Did he just buy it?”
“How should I know? Don’t linger, for God’s sake. Get out if there is nothing more you can do.”
The young man looks confused and disappointed. “All right, all right. But I need to cover my tracks first.”
She stands behind him, watching every click of the keys. I could have told you, the voice in her mind repeats. I could have told you, had you only asked, you bastard! James is not a man to leave anything behind. At least not on a laptop that anybody with a bit of technical skill can get into.
Chapter 32
The conference table is littered with leftovers from their sushi lunch. The pungent smell of raw fish, soya, and wasabi is overwhelming in the small meeting room. Jo gets up, jerks open the door and snaps her fingers at the nearest analyst.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Thomas asks, his voice uncharacteristically hard. “Don’t you order my analysts around like they’re waiters in a fast food restaurant.”
“Your analysts?”
“People!” Francis holds up his hands. “I appreciate the intention, Jo; the stench is unbearable—but this is not your style. And Thomas, they are our analysts, just for the record.”
A young man knocks on the glass door and enters, his eyes shooting arrows at Jo. But he does clear the table and turns on the air-conditioning. They are silent until the door closes after him again.
“As I was saying,” Thomas picks up the thread again, “I am not happy about the situation in Marrakesh. If one or more people were following you, Francis, so soon after what happened in Alexandria, I think there is ground for concern.”
“I agree,” Jo says, even though her body language displays a reluctance to side with Thomas. “You are in danger, and we need to get Dhammakarati to establish security for you.”
“Nonsense!” Francis snaps. “I am fine. Nothing will happen to me. If anything, they are just thugs sent to scare me. We need Dhamma to concentrate on Camilla.”
“But, Francis—” Thomas tries.
But Francis interrupts him, “—There is no more to discuss, Thomas. I don’t want bodyguards or any other security. Let’s return to Camilla.”
Thomas and Jo exchange a glance. Jo shrugs.
Francis takes them through the events that have occurred to Camilla and adds that he has arranged for a doctor and a crisis psychologist to look in on her every day.
“It doesn’t sound good,” Jo offers. “She appears to have been in some kind of shock since she has returned.”
“I agree,” says Francis. “I am beginning to think that Camilla is the kind of person who is strong during smooth sailing but crumples when the going gets tough.”
“That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” Thomas asks. “We don’t know what she has been through.”
“True,” agrees Francis. “Anyway, there is not much else we can do until she starts speaking again. What she means by ‘Nazis’ is impossible to know. It would be a waste of time and energy to follow so thin a lead.” His gaze lingers on Jo. “And, I’d just like to stress this; we will take care of Camilla until she is able to take care of herself, even if that means forever. Agreed?”
Jo and Thomas nod.
But Dhammakarati is thinking of something else. “Didn’t you say that the man Camilla met on the beach called himself James?” the monk asks in his soft tone.
Three pair of eyes stare at him. The monk is usually so quiet and withdrawn that the three of them often forget his presence. He has the uncanny ability to disappear from people’s minds even as he is sitting next to them in a room. “It is just a question of breathing,” he answered when Jo asked him about it once during one of her retreats at the monastery.
The silence in the room is palpable.
Then Francis breaks it. “Jo. It’s your case. Where are we?”
She meets his glance and takes over, “We have access to his computer through the backdoor, which your young wizard installed.”
Thomas rolls his eyes.
“And exactly like I warned you, we have found nothing. Because, as I have told you repeatedly, James doesn’t use computers for anything important. And I am almost certain that he uses burners for phone conversations that he doesn’t want anybody to know about.”
“Burners?” Thomas asks.
Now it is Jo’s turn to roll her eyes as his ignorance. “Dispensable phones with a phone card that can’t be tracked once they’re destroyed. Anyway, James is a cautious man, and we will not find any damning evidence from his use of technology. And while we’re at it, he doesn’t keep an office, so there is nothing to bug there either. The one thing we need to do is to find out when and where he is meeting people, follow him, and get close enough to hear his conversations. It will be an immense operation, I know, very time-consuming. But I don’t see any other way.”
“We need ears and preferably eyes in every room of his house,” Francis says speculatively as if he hadn’t heard her last suggestion.
“Sure,” Thomas replies, “if we can get in, no problem.”
Francis looks at Jo. “Any ideas?”
“Aside from the obvious?” she asks archly.
Francis scowls.
Thomas looks back and forth between Jo and Francis, confused. “The obvious?” he asks.
“Me keeping him busy. You see, Thomas, I am the company whore, trained to please.” Her voice is bitter and searing.
“Thomas and Dhamma, give us a moment, would you?” Francis cut in.
They obediently get up and leaves the room, but Thomas cannot resist a last questioning glance at Jo.
“What is the matter, Jo?”
“Nothing,” she answers sullenly, “I’m fine.”
“Come on, now, Jo. I know you too well.”
He was Francis, the confessor. Francis, the father. Francis, a man she could trust. But she can’t trust him with this. She is fully aware of that. He already knows everything there is to know about her. Except this—this new feeling, this turbulence and terror inside her. This he does not know, nor can he, ever.
She forces a smile and pulls her professionality over her like a cloak. “I’m just tired, Francis, that’s all. Sorry for the outburst. Just give me a week. I’ll go to the monastery for a few days to recuperate.”
He looks inquisitively at her. “Are you sure, Jo?”
She nods.
“Apart from my concern for you, I need to know whether you are up for the job.”
“I am up for it, no problem.” She sits up in the chair, flashing him a bright smile. “Should we get back to planning?”
He nods slowly.
He will be watching me closely, she thinks. He might even ask Thomas to keep me under observation. But he will never discover her secret. The only way that will come out to him is through my own lips.
Chapter 33
A gentle hand wakes her in the middle of the night. “Miss Jo! Miss Jo, you need to get up. Please!” The urgency of the voice, however respectful and gentle, is clear.
Jo sits up, groping blindly for her phone and checks the time. Half past three! Bloody hell, when Dhammakarati had suggested she go through a cleansing ritual before the death she had to incur, she had not imagined it would be something that took place during the night in the jungle. Rather, she had imagined herself kneeling and praying in the shadowed meditation hall while the sun beats down on humankind.
As if to answer her thoughts, she hears Dhammakarati’s gentle but authoritative voice through the open door. “Is she up yet?”
A woman answers in a low voice. Jo doesn’t want him in her tiny bedroom, so she jumps out of bed, “I am up!” she calls out. A young nun slips a white robe over Jo’s shoulders and gestures for her to follow.
The moonlit night is alive with night crea
tures. She hears insects, unseen animals, small feet running, clawing, and wings brushing the still air. The fragrance of the frangipani is still notable in the night.
She follows the nun through the compound and turns left at the temple where they enter a long stretch of canopied banyan trees she’s never seen before. It is as dense as the inside of a tunnel. The only light comes from an open door she can just make out in the distance. Her thoughts are a jumble of excitement, anticipation, and dread. Dhammakarati is right—she needs to clean up if she is to take on George Schwartz and revenge the devastating rent he has torn in her own self-confidence. And in Francis’s.
They reach the open door, and she realizes there is yet another walk waiting for them, this time along a narrow corridor of ancient gray stone. Every few yards, a sconce holding a brass oil lamp lights the way. Even so, shadows linger in her peripheral vision, shadows that are tempting, dangerous.
From the outside, this looks like any other monastery in this country. Once you enter the gate, a narrow dirt road slices the area into two parts, one much bigger than the other. On the left side are small huts for the few women who stay at the center temporarily. On the right, and much bigger side, are huts for the men, more than the eye can count. In the far distance, at the end of the yellow dirt road is the temple, if morning mist or blankets of rain do not hide it.
The temple is a simple construction in the classic form of an anteroom, with an open back and front, as if to indicate the transience of life and the fact that there really is nowhere for one’s mind to hide once one has learned to apply the spotlight of meditation. It is merely a place to visit, not to linger. At the back of the temple is an atrium with a flagstone floor surrounded by a tall balustrade. Off the balustrade, doors open into the master’s bedroom and his attendants’ quarters.
Eventually, Jo’s little group comes to a large room, brightly lit by candles and oil lamps. The floor is made of huge slabs of stone, smooth to the touch on her bare feet. The walls are the same rough, ancient gray stones that made up the corridor she had just come from. She has a strong impression that she is inside the monastery’s secret temple, the temple Dhammakarati has alluded to, but she has never seen until now.
A chill passed through her, less from the coolness of the stone than from a sense of insignificance against a vast backdrop of the past.
A nun touches Jo lightly on the shoulder and motions for her to let the robe fall. She does so and allows herself to be led toward an enormous stone bathtub along one side of the room. A white cloth covers the tub and flows down to the sides—petals of frangipani float on the water where steam rises.
She steps up on a low footstool, grips one side of the tub, and eases herself slowly into the water. It feels like warm oil, thick against her skin. The scent is pleasant and unobtrusive with a touch of lavender and a note of lily. Just as she is about to let herself slip under completely, a pair of hands grip her neck and position her head on some kind of hollowed shelf. The white cloth is drawn over the water, enclosing her fully, where only her head is visible. It is sheer bliss. She doses off.
In the dream, she loves the dark vampire for his strength to contain her. She loves him for the knowledge that she cannot defeat him because his motives are inscrutable and much stronger than hers. He is withdrawn, reserved, and she is left waiting uneasily, no longer self-sufficient. The other creature is sheathed in a billowing, scarlet cape swooping down, and it hurts her once. She whimpers. The scarlet creature comes back and hurts her again, and she screams out her desperate need and longing: JAMES!
He is there, her strong black vampire, a blur of black and scarlet like birds fighting. Feathers drop slowly to the ground. The scarlet disappears, and she is in his arms. Home. Safe. James.
She wakes up because the water has cooled off. She has no idea how long she has been sleeping, as the only light comes from candles and oil lamps. Someone is clapping her hands softly, and two of the younger nuns help her out of the bath. She wants to spare them the effort but finds she has no strength left, as though the water has drawn all her powers. She hazily wonders what sort of herbs and potions have been in the water. She surrenders weakly to the arms of the nuns.
It is nowhere near a blissful spa experience: the salt and the rough loofah nearly shred her skin, in addition to the hot wax the nun pours over her body hair, covering it up with white gauze before ripping it off in long, brutal strokes, almost have her fainting. And when finally, the scrubbing and the pulling is over, gentle hands cover her from head to toe in oil. She savors the velvety feel against her skin, but then a slight stinging starts, followed by an intense coldness. The cold lasts for some minutes until it is replaced by a burning heat all over her body. “Camphor!” she thinks, or something like that. She gives up, surrenders, and accepts the pain.
The scent is no longer the delicate mix of lily and lavender, but an overpowering and sharp smell that stings her eyes and crawls into her nostrils.
She feels every private part of her body being penetrated and purified. There is nothing sensual about it, but a delicate feeling of becoming pure despite or perhaps because of the pain involved. She feels cleansed by fire, although water was the element.
Blood hums in her veins, her spine is tingling, and her lower back and between her shoulder blades tenses as if she is anticipating an orgasm. Her belly is on fire, her limbs weak, she is dizzy, nauseous, and certain that if she attempts to stand up, she will fall over.
All of a sudden it seems the process has come to an end. The nuns drape a white sheet over her, tucking the ends ever so gently beneath her.
One of them whispers, “Rest now for a little while. We will wake you later.”
She hardly hears the words before her eyelids become so heavy, she can’t keep them open any longer.
When she wakes up, Dhammakarati is standing over her. “It is time,” he murmurs in his soft voice. “You have a job to do.”
Chapter 34
“What are you working on, Sarah?”
They are sitting cozily in their huge lounge chairs in front of a roaring fire. Soft, classical music plays in the background, and coffee and a premium cognac sit on a low table between them. Outside, the rain is pouring down as the darkness approaches. It has been the perfect weekend.
She looks up from the laptop. “I’m doing a piece on the Bang-Henriksen family.”
He stiffens involuntarily. “Who?”
“You know the family behind H’Allure? The oldest son committed suicide not so long ago.”
It suddenly occurs to him that she is watching him intently. He puts on a neutral face. “Ah, yes, the guy in Hotel D’Angleterre, right?” He forces his voice to be casual and reaches for the newspaper to hide his thoughts.
The clues begin to add up for him. He has felt from the start that there was something unusual about Sarah. He feels it still. No woman has ever submitted to him with such violent abandonment, and yet…And yet, as soon as she is not in his arms, she is distant and somehow untouchable. Which, he must admit to himself, makes her even more desirous.
The first clue had been when he returned from his massage in Marrakesh and there had been a lingering scent of male cologne in the rooms, which was definitely not the smell left behind by the Arab waiters or cleaning staff. For some reason, he had not asked Sarah if anybody had been there.
Then a sixth sense had made him take his MacBook to his trusted security firm, Alpha International, and learned that somebody had tampered with it and installed what he understands to be a permanent means of accessing his computer at all times from somewhere else. Not that it mattered. He never kept anything on his computer that could not stand up to the scrutiny of any tax official or opposing lawyer. The only time when he had literally not had his new MacBook in view was in Marrakesh. But nobody tampers with his belongings. He feels his anger rise as he thinks of it.
And now this. Is it a coincidence that Sarah is writing about the Bang-Henriksen family? Had there not been a strangely
observant look in her eyes as she answered him? He keeps turning the pages in the newspaper but is hardly aware of what he is reading, his mind grappling with a heart-wrenching possibility: Is Sarah who she says she is? Or is she here with secret motives? It would be his usual luck with women if the first woman he has found interesting in years turns out to be something other than what she pretends to be. He sighs.
She looks at him, “Everything all right, James?”
He reaches out and closes his hand around her upper arm. Then he squeezes. Hard. He looks at her. “Oh, yes, everything is perfect right now.” A deep satisfaction hits him when the faintest blush spreads on her pale cheeks.
In two days, he is meeting Freddy, the owner of Alpha International.
The two men are now walking in The King’s Garden. A pale sun provides the old gardens with a delicate light, which is not enough to bring out the usual militant army of young mothers with their prams and Starbucks coffees. James is a big man, muscular enough to look out for himself, and if you were told to pick between James being a businessman or a former Jaeger officer of the Specialist Operation Command, you would choose James as the officer. The other man is small and sinewy with mild eyes. But this is a case where looks indeed are deceiving. Freddy—even James doesn’t know his last name, or even if Freddy is his real name—is not only a secretly decorated Jaeger but has been an advisor for governments across the world. He is well connected, has a superior team, and has been highly recommended to James. The two men may not be friends, but they are as friendly as you can be in such a situation.
“Sorry, Freddy, but you need to take me through this again. This is all a bit much.” James gestures vaguely.
“Of course. I understand this comes as a shock. What you need to be most concerned about right now, James is that you’re are being conned. Why and by whom we don’t know. The deep background check you asked us to do on Sarah Stensgaard came up with nothing. There is no journalist writing for Berlingske Tidende called Sarah Stensgaard.”
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