Dewey looked at the ground, then back to her.
“I’m leaving for the United States in one hour,” Jessica said. “I would like you to come with me. Would you come with me?”
“No. I can’t.”
“It’s not your fault, Dewey. I’m the one who asked you to go to Pakistan. I’m the one who called General Dayan. I’m the one who got the Shayetet team sent in. I’m the reason the six Israelis are dead, the reason Alex and Rob are dead. If you’re going to blame someone, blame me, but don’t blame yourself.”
“I would never blame you.”
“You saved millions of lives this week,” said Jessica. “Innocent lives. Children and families all over India and Pakistan. You prevented the United States from being dragged into a war that could have cost millions of American lives. Had Omar El-Khayab remained in power, it is certain that our allies, Israel first among them, would have been dragged into the conflict. You prevented what could have been war between America and China. You
alone,
Dewey. Do you understand that?”
Dewey placed his hand on top of hers, covering her hand. He held it tight, but said nothing.
“We’re the front edge of a very sharp blade,” she whispered. “‘The tip of the spear,’ isn’t that what they say? And at the edge, there’s death. That’s the world we live in. But without the spear, our world, our freedom, would disappear before you know it.”
“What happens to Bolin?” asked Dewey.
Jessica paused. She looked at the ground, then shook her head.
“The Middle East is a screwed-up place, you know that,” she said. “We’re only at the beginning. This conflict, this war, it’s barely even begun.”
“You’re not ready to fight the war I was born to fight,” said Dewey.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m going to kill Fortuna,” he said. “Then Bolin.”
Jessica stared into Dewey’s blue eyes.
“There are no winners over here, Dewey,” she said, turning her hand up and interlocking her fingers in his. “Let’s get out of here—you and me—before something bad happens. You promised you’d come home alive. Let’s go home. Let’s put it all aside for a while.” She paused, then squeezed his hand. “Let’s try and build something,” she whispered.
“They killed my men in cold blood. They died in front of me. Alex Millar was twenty-four years old. I can’t just walk away. I can’t let them get away with it.”
Jessica forced a smile across her face, but it held back deep sorrow that brought tears to her eyes. She had to bite her lip. “I didn’t want to talk about this,” she whispered finally. “I wanted to tell you that I miss you. Save Fortuna for another day. Please let’s leave before…”
Her voice trailed off. Dewey said nothing, his eyes looked away from Jessica, up at the caskets at the front of the cemetery.
“Okay,” she said in resignation. Slowly she stood up.
She looked at Dewey, placing her right hand on his shoulder, then brushing it across his cheek. He looked at it, thin, long, elegant fingers, short, unadorned fingernails, a simple, shining emerald ring on her finger. He looked up at her beautiful face.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked, looking into Dewey’s eyes. “Did you…”
“What?”
“Well, did you … find someone else while you were in Australia?”
Jessica stared, then looked away, afraid of what the answer might be. She waited, looking at the white chair in front of him, but he said nothing. After several moments of pregnant silence, she turned, closing her eyes as she did so. She walked away from Dewey, down the pebble stones, to the aisle.
“Jess,” he said.
She turned as Dewey stood. He walked down the pebble path. He didn’t stop until his chest was pressed against her white blouse, the neat, perfect crown of her auburn hair just beneath his chin. He leaned toward her; their lips nearly touching. Jessica’s red lips were close enough to feel the gentle wind from her breathing.
“Promise me something,” he said.
“What?”
“You’ll be there when I come home,” Dewey said.
She looked into his eyes without expression, then a smile appeared on her lips. A breeze blew through her hair, fanning it across her shoulders. She leaned forward on her tiptoes and their lips touched, and they kissed, and for a moment they escaped together, escaped it all.
“Promise,” she whispered.
RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL
ROTHSCHILD BOULEVARD
TEL AVIV
The bar at the Ritz Tel Aviv was nearly empty. A couple from Spain sat at one end, the woman laughing every few minutes, slightly inebriated. Two older women, visiting from England, sat near the middle of the bar, chatting with the bartender.
It was one thirty in the morning. Dewey sat at the bar, his fifth Jack Daniel’s in a glass on the obsidian marble bar top in front of him. After a few minutes, the Spanish couple stood up, holding hands, leaving to go upstairs to their room.
Dewey swigged the last of the whiskey, then nodded at the bartender and ordered another.
“Certainly,” the bartender said. “I must tell you, we close at two.”
Dewey said nothing.
A woman walked quietly into the bar, taking the seat immediately to Dewey’s right. She caught the bartender’s eye, he did a double take in fact, as most men did when they saw her for the first time.
“Bordeaux,” she said, barely above a whisper, a soft French accent. “Petrus.”
“I’m sorry,” said the bartender. “We don’t sell Petrus by the glass.”
“Then give me a bottle,” she said.
She turned to Dewey. He looked at her blankly. Her long black hair, behind her ears, shimmered, so straight, down past her shoulders. Dark skin, the color of soft leather. Blazing eyes of smoldering blue. She was perfect; a dazzling, exotic-looking beauty. Saudi, Dewey guessed. He glanced at her, then looked away without saying anything.
The bartender opened the bottle of wine. She tasted a small amount, then nodded to the bartender, who poured her a full glass. She took a sip.
“He said you were quiet,” the woman remarked after several moments.
Dewey sipped his whiskey without looking at her.
“He didn’t tell me you were such a, how do you say, ‘tall drink of water.’”
She turned and looked appreciatively at Dewey’s face, now clean-shaven, his blue eyes, then down at his blue, short-sleeved shirt, arms tanned and ripped, then back to his eyes.
“Who sent you?” Dewey asked coldly.
“Hector Calibrisi.”
Dewey turned, his bloodshot eyes becoming slightly more alert.
“My name is Candela,” she said. “You are to come with me.”
“Where?” Dewey asked.
“A house in Broumana,” she said. “‘I always live up to my end of the bargain.’ Hector told me to tell you that.”
Dewey looked at her. He bolted down the last of his whiskey as the first smile in a long time appeared on his face.
PATULA HILL
BROUMANA
Dawn arrived at six o’clock sharp. The horizon brightened by incremental shades, black to gray, gray to peach, peach falling away to dust-filled, ageless yellow.
The villa, made of ornate, interweaving sandstone, spread out in a rambling line atop Patula Hill. The early sun caught the villa’s terra-cotta roof, heating the clay. Shimmering tendrils of steam drifted almost invisibly up to the sky.
Inside, the house was so silent you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. A mistle thrush, sitting on a distant tree branch, sang a song, repetitively, the high, staccato tune barely audible, and yet the only sound that could be heard inside the large house.
The sound of footsteps came from down the hallway.
Aswan Fortuna walked into the kitchen. He was naked, his body tanned and wrinkled, yet still retained a healthy tone despite its seventy-five years. He walked slowly to the counter, filled a teapot with water, then placed it on one of the burners on the large stove and ignited the gas. He coughed several times, working himself into a lather, then spat into the sink.
He walked around the marble island, toward the wall of glass that looked out on the swimming pool. He looked above the pool to the distant, dark waters of the Mediterranean, shimmering in the early morning light.
Fortuna’s head jerked back as his eyes focused for a second time on the slate deck surrounding the gunite pool. On the ground, in various states of contortion, lying in pools of blood, four armed guards lay dead.
He reached his hand toward the door handle.
“Don’t.”
Fortuna turned to the table. Sitting at the head of the table was a man. He had a face Fortuna immediately recognized. Brown hair, cut short now. Penetrating, vicious eyes of stone blue. Older than the photograph, meaner. Adrenaline shot through Fortuna. In a strange way, he had found the quarry that for so long had eluded him. The man who had killed his son. But then, he realized, it was the quarry who had found the hunter, and that he would soon be like dust in a hurricane, wiped from the face of the earth forever.
In the man’s hand, a weapon was trained casually upon him. Fortuna didn’t have to guess the make of the weapon. He already knew: Colt M1911 semiautomatic .45 caliber handgun. Screwed into the nozzle, Fortuna noticed, a long, black silencer, whose cap end hole was aimed directly at his skull.
“Ever have one of those days you just wished you’d stayed in bed?” the man asked.
Fortuna shut his eyes and shook his head.
“Andreas,” he whispered.
* * *
Dewey stood up from the chair. He stepped calmly around the back of the table. He wore an old blue T-shirt, a large orange Puma logo on the front. Jeans. His boots made a loud tapping noise on the slate floor as he walked toward Fortuna, weapon trained at all times on the terrorist.
Fortuna stepped away from the window. He faced Dewey, waiting for him as he walked toward him.
“May I at least get a towel?” asked Fortuna, remaining still. “To cover myself?”
Dewey walked around the long pine harvest table not answering.
“Candela?” Fortuna asked.
Still Dewey said nothing. He moved closer to Fortuna, keeping the silenced M1911 aimed at his skull.
“I always suspected,” Fortuna said nervously. “Nebbie said, ‘Why would such a stunning girl as her be interested in someone as old as you?’ but I thought, perhaps, at first, it was about the money.”
Dewey pulled the trigger. A mechanical thud sounded as a silenced .45 caliber slug tore into Fortuna’s left shoulder. Blood and flesh splattered across the glass behind him in the same moment the cartridge passed through the shoulder, shattering the glass door. Large pieces of glass rained loudly to the slate ground below. As if kicked in the chest by a horse, Fortuna was knocked backwards. He tumbled sideways onto the floor. An instant later, he screamed and reached his right hand reflexively up to grab at the wound. His hand returned, covered in blood. The side of his face and neck were dotted in crimson, splashed up from the shoulder.
Dewey took another step forward. Fortuna turned from staring at his destroyed shoulder and looked up at him, a grimace of unspeakable pain on his sweat-covered face. Sweat covered his face. His breathing grew rapid.
“There will be more,” Fortuna coughed.
“That’s what your son said,” said Dewey. “Bring ’em on. I’m starting to like this.”
Dewey aimed the handgun at Fortuna’s right foot and fired. A silenced bullet ripped into the front part of the foot, shattering the bones. Blood washed across his legs and torso from the shot. Fortuna screamed horrendously, tried to reach for the ruined foot, but could barely move because of the wound to his shoulder.
“Nebuchar will hunt you down,” said Fortuna, struggling. “He’s the one. Alexander always had the poetic side, his mother’s side. But Nebuchar is pure stone. He’ll find you. He will—”
Dewey pumped yet another slug. This one ripped into Fortuna’s right chest, silencing him. His head slammed back on the hard slate. His eyes shot back into his head as the pain went from acute to a level only people about to die know. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked up helplessly at Dewey.
“If you had left me alone, you’d be sitting by the pool, drinking your chamomile tea right now,” said Dewey. “If Nebuchar minds his business, he has no reason to worry.”
Dewey stepped closer, then trained the weapon at Fortuna’s head. He waited, one moment, then another. He watched as Fortuna’s eyes opened and shut, then opened again.
“But if Nebuchar fucks with me he’ll die the same way as you and your precious Alexander: from a bullet stamped ‘Made in the U.S.A.’”
Dewey flexed his finger on the steel trigger. A slug ripped out and tore a crisp, dime-sized black hole in the middle of Fortuna’s forehead.
Dewey stared for a moment longer, turned, and stepped toward the door. He heard the teakettle beginning to whistle.
As he crossed the kitchen, a thought came into his head, a memory, out of place, out of context, but there it was: a rain-soaked afternoon during Delta training so many years ago, running with a hundred-pound pack on his back through the North Carolina woods, torrential downpours, rain storms the likes of which Fort Bragg hadn’t seen in a generation; the water drenching his team in blinding sheets of warm, cleansing rainwater. The kind of afternoon no Delta likes, and yet, that was the memory he had at that moment. Like the rain that day, Dewey let the memory wash over him then, cleansing him as he walked the first steps that would take him away from the villa, from Broumana, from Lebanon, from the Middle East; the steps that would deliver him away from the war he knew had only just begun.
ISLAMABAD
The black Mercedes limousine moved slowly out of the basement-level parking lot beneath Aiwan-e-Sadr. Two dark green PAF Humvees moved in front of the limousine. Behind the limousine, two more Humvees trailed.
Inside the bulletproof Mercedes, President Xavier Bolin sat alone in the backseat, staring out the window.
Constitution Avenue was quiet and empty. The protests that followed the removal of Omar El-Khayab had lasted for a week, but eventually the overwhelming force of the Pakistani Army, deployed in cities across Pakistan, had snuffed out the popular uprising before it spiraled out of control. Martial law, a general curfew, and an almost complete blackout of the media had succeeded in calming the country down. The fear of being locked up or shot had driven El-Khayab’s supporters back to their apartment buildings, back to their villages, back to their mosques, back to their caves. Most people assumed that hundreds had died in the aftermath of the regime change, but no one knew for sure except Bolin and his advisors. As of that morning, following yet another nighttime riot in the Taliban hotbed of Peshawar, the body count stood at more than two thousand dead Pakistani citizens, not including casualties of the war with India.