32
“Why Greece?” Lily asked as she swiftly gathered her things in Swain’s hotel room.
“Because it’s warm, and because it’s the first flight out that I could get us on. Do you have your passport?”
“Several.”
He stopped what he was doing and gave her an oddly tender smile. “The one in your real name. That’s what I booked your ticket under.”
She winced. “That might cause problems.” She hadn’t forgotten that she had to be on guard against the CIA, too, though so far she seemed to have gone in under the radar on that one. After what had happened today, whether that would remain true was anyone’s guess. “Turn on the television. Let’s see if anything is being reported on the news.”
Either the explosion was being kept quiet or they had missed the story in the news item rotation, and they didn’t have time to wait through another segment. Rather than call a bellman, Swain carried their luggage down himself, then checked them out of the hotel.
“We have to go to my apartment,” Lily said when they were in the car. They had ditched the van several blocks away from the hotel, and walked the rest of the way.
Swain gave her a disbelieving look. “Do you know how long that will take us?”
“I have to get my pictures of Zia. I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to come back, so I’m not leaving them behind. If I see we’re going to miss our flight, I’ll call and cancel the reservations and book us on the next one.”
“Maybe we can make it,” he said, a devilish grin on his face, and Lily braced herself for the ride of a lifetime.
They did make it to her apartment building in one piece, but Lily kept her eyes closed most of the way and didn’t open them no matter how close the screeching brakes and blasting horns were. “I won’t be a minute,” she said when he pulled to a stop.
“I’m coming up with you.”
She gave him an incredulous look as he climbed out of the car and locked it. “But you’re blocking the street. What if someone wants to get by?”
“Then they can damn well wait.”
He climbed the stairs with her, his left hand on the small of her back and his right hand on his pistol butt. Lily unlocked the door, and Swain went in first as she reached in and flipped on the light switch, sweeping right to left with his pistol until he was certain no one was waiting for them.
Lily stepped inside and closed the door. “We can leave our weapons here.” She dragged a lockbox out of a cabinet. “This is sublet for a year, and I have eight months left.”
They both put their weapons in the box, and she locked it, then put it back into the cabinet. They could have put the weapons in their checked luggage, disassembled and in a lockbox, declared them to the airline, and perhaps had no trouble collecting them on the other end, but she doubted things would go that smoothly. It was always easier to acquire weapons once she got to where she was going than to try to take one with her. Besides, they didn’t want the airline personnel paying any particular attention to them.
She got Zia’s photographs and added them to her tote bag, and they were out the door. As they were going down the stairs, Swain said, grinning, “Was that the bed you bought from a nun?”
Lily snickered. “No, it came with the apartment.”
“I didn’t buy the nun story for a minute.”
Though he drove like a demented bat out of hell, it became obvious they weren’t going to make it to the airport in time to catch the flight. Lily called and canceled their reservations and made new ones for another flight, and after that he actually took his foot off the gas pedal occasionally, so she dared to keep her eyes open.
“Why did you shoot Dr. Giordano?” she asked, watching the traffic instead of him, because the fact that he’d deviated from the plan bothered her. Had he noticed that moment when she’d become emotional, and been afraid she might botch the shot?
“I wondered when that subject would come up,” he muttered, and sighed. “I did it because it was personal to you, and because you didn’t need the guilt I knew you’d feel afterward.”
“Salvatore Nervi was a personal hit, too,” she pointed out. “I don’t feel one shred of guilt about him.”
“That was different. You actually liked Dr. Giordano, before you found out what he was doing. Killing him would have hurt you.”
He was probably right, she thought, leaning her head back against the headrest. In setting up the hit on Salvatore, she had been carried along on a tide of pain so great it had overwhelmed everything else. But between then and today, she had found sunshine again; somehow, killing Dr. Giordano would have blotted out some of the sun. She didn’t understand it. Giordano was a righteous hit, perhaps the most righteous of all—but she was glad she hadn’t done it. It was that gladness that both puzzled and upset her. Was she losing her edge . . . and had Swain noticed? Was that why he’d done it?
He reached over and took her hand. “Stop fretting about it. It’s done.”
It was done. Over. Finished. She felt as if a door had closed behind her, sealing off her past. Other than go to Greece with Swain, she had no idea what she would do next. For the first time in her life, she was adrift.
They reached the airport and turned in the Mercedes to the rental company, then made their way to the ticket counter and checked in. They had a couple of hours to kill before their flight and they were both hungry, so they went into one of the airport restaurants. They chose one of the rear booths from which they could watch the entrance, though checking in had been totally uneventful. No one had tried to detain them; no one blinked an eye at Lily’s name. It was unnerving.
The restaurant was one with multiple televisions on the wall so the patrons could keep up with news, sports, and weather while they ate. They both looked up when they heard the name “Nervi” mentioned.
“In shocking news tonight, Damone Nervi has announced that the explosion that devastated one of the Nervi properties late this afternoon has resulted in the death of his older brother, Rodrigo Nervi. The brothers lost their father, Salvatore Nervi, less than a month ago. Damone Nervi has assumed leadership of all the Nervi holdings. The explosion that killed Rodrigo Nervi is believed to have been caused by a faulty gas line. Authorities are investigating.”
Lily and Swain looked at each other. “Rodrigo wasn’t there,” she hissed.
“I know.” He looked thoughtful. “Son of a bitch. I believe there’s been a coup.”
Lily had to agree. Damone had evidently seized the opportunity to kill Rodrigo and make the murder look like an accident. It must have been an impulse, a spur-of-the-moment decision precipitated by the destruction of the laboratory. But Damone was widely reckoned as the brilliant one, the one with the Midas touch; would he have acted so impulsively, when the outcome could just as easily have resulted in his own death?
The only other possibility was that Rodrigo’s death wasn’t an impulse at all. And that could be only if—“My God,” she blurted. “He planned the whole thing.”
Three weeks later, Lily woke from a late afternoon nap to hear Swain out on the terrace, talking on the satellite telephone he’d wrangled from somewhere, saying angrily, “Damn it, Frank—No. No. Fuck it, no. All right. I said all right, but I don’t like it. You owe me, big-time. Yeah, I said you owe me, so you’d better be damn sure you’re right.” He slammed down the phone and walked to the low wall of the terrace, where he planted his hands on his hips and glared out at the blue Aegean.
She slipped from the bed and went out through the double doors onto the terrace, walking up behind him and sliding her arms around his waist. She laid her head against his bare back and kissed his warm shoulder blade. “You finally got to talk to Frank?” Frank was his friend who had been in the car accident. Two weeks earlier Frank had been moved out of ICU into a regular hospital bed, but he’d evidently been guarded by someone who had been adamant that he not be disturbed. The day before he’d been moved into a rehab facility, but judging from the way Swain had sounded, their first conversation hadn’t been to his liking.
“The hardheaded son of a bitch,” he growled, but he caught one of her hands and pressed it to his chest.
“What’s wrong?”
“He wants me to do something I don’t want to do.”
“Such as?”
“Take a job I don’t like.”
That wasn’t welcome news. In the three weeks they’d been in Greece, on the island of Evvoia, they had slipped into a lazy routine that felt like heaven. The days were often cloudy but definitely warmer than in Paris, with highs often reaching into the seventies. The nights got cold, but that was all the better for cuddling in bed. Today had been almost perfect, sunny all day long, and so warm Swain had been shirtless most of the day. Now that the sun was setting, the temperature would drop like a rock, but for just a few minutes more they were comfortable.
They made love; they slept late; they ate whenever they wanted; they strolled through town. They were staying in a house on the mountain slope above the port town of Karystos, with a spectacular view of the sea. Lily had fallen in love with the house, a simple white house with bright blue shutters and an air of peace. She could have stayed there with him forever, though she knew the idyll would eventually end.
Evidently it was going to end sooner than she’d expected. If Swain took this job he didn’t want to take—and Frank was obviously twisting his arm to take it—he would have to leave the island. She could stay here without him, of course, but the big question was: Did she want to? An even bigger question was whether she’d have the option of going with him. They still hadn’t discussed the future; the present had been so very pleasant she had luxuriated in it, letting the days drift past.
“If you take the job, where will you have to go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then how do you know you don’t want it?”
“Because I won’t be here.” He turned in the circle of her arms and kissed her forehead. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Then don’t.”
“Frank’s pulling one of those ‘do it for me’ deals.”
“It’s obvious he can’t do it himself. How long will he be in rehab?”
“At least a month, he said, and God only knows how long it’ll be before he’s back to normal.”
“If you take the job, how long will you be gone?”
He was silent, and her heart sank. A long time, then. “I could go with you,” she offered, though she hadn’t meant to. If he wanted her with him, he would say so. Surely he did, didn’t he? He said “I love you” every day, several times a day. He showed it in the obvious enjoyment he took from being in her company, in the attention he paid to her, the way he touched her.
“You can’t,” he finally said. “If I take it, that won’t be an option.”
That was that, then. “When do you have to decide?”
“In a few days. Not right now, at any rate.” He cupped her chin and turned her face up, studying her features in the growing twilight as if he were trying to memorize them. His blue eyes were darkly intent. “I don’t know that I can do it,” he whispered. “I don’t want to leave here.”
“Then don’t,” she said simply, and he laughed.
“I wish it was that easy. Frank . . . well, he’s a hard man to turn down.”
“Does he have something on you?”
He laughed, though the sound was more wry than humorous. “It isn’t that. He’s just one of those persuasive people. And I hate to admit it, but I trust him more than any other man I know.” He shivered suddenly, as the dropping temperature finally got the best of him. “Let’s go inside. I can think of several things I’d rather be doing than worrying about a job I might not take.”
He didn’t mention it again, and because he didn’t, Lily left the subject alone. They went inside to a simple supper of new potatoes cooked with dill and capers, feta cheese in olive oil, bread, and Boutari wine. They had hired a woman from town named Chrisoula to come up and do the cooking for them every day; at first she had wanted to prepare large evening meals, in the Greek tradition, but they had impressed on her that they preferred to eat more lightly at night. She didn’t like it, but she complied. For one thing, this meant she got home at an earlier hour, where she could enjoy the long evening meal with her own family.
The house had no television, and neither of them missed it. In the three weeks they’d been there, Swain had bought a newspaper twice. That lack of outside interference had been just what she needed, a chance to just be, no pressures, no looking over her shoulder. On the warmer days she sat on the terrace for hours, soaking up the sunshine, letting her psyche heal. She had put one of Zia’s pictures out in the bedroom where she could see it, and a day later Swain had taken the pictures of his kids out of his wallet and propped them up beside Zia’s. Chrisoula thought all three kids were theirs, and they didn’t disabuse her of the notion, which wouldn’t have been that easy in any case, because neither of them had a good grasp of the Greek language and Chrisoula’s English wasn’t much better. They managed to eventually communicate on most things, but it was an effort.
That night, knowing that Swain might leave soon, Zia was very much on Lily’s mind. Some days were like that, with memories ambushing her at every turn, though now she would go days without crying. And because she was thinking so much about Zia, she wondered if Swain had days when all he could think about was his kids.
“Don’t you miss them?” she asked. “Chrissy and Sam?”
“So much it hurts,” he readily replied. “I figure it’s what I deserve.”
She had known he felt guilty about his kids; she just hadn’t realized he embraced the guilt. “Instead of wearing that hair shirt, why don’t you move closer to them? You missed most of their childhood, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss their adulthood, too. One of these days you’ll be a grandfather. Are you going to keep yourself away from your grandchildren?”
He turned his glass of wine around and around, staring thoughtfully at it. “I’d love to see more of them. I just don’t know if they’d like to see more of me. When I do see them, they’re friendly, they’re fond of me, but maybe that’s because I’m on the periphery of their lives. If I try to horn in . . . who knows?”
“So ask them.”
He gave a quick grin. “A simple answer for a simple problem, huh? To a little kid, nothing matters as much as just being there, and I let them down. That’s the hard truth.”
“Yes, it is. Are you going to let it go on being the hard truth for the rest of your life?”
He stared at her for a long minute, then drank the rest of his wine and set the glass down on the table. “Maybe not. Maybe one day I’ll work up the nerve to ask them.”
“If Zia was still alive, there’s no way I wouldn’t be there.” That was another hard truth, and implicit in the statement was She isn’t alive, but your children are. She didn’t know why she was hammering at him about this, except that she’d been thinking of Zia and Swain might not be here much longer for her to say this to him. They had covered this ground once before, but it didn’t seem have to sunk in with him—either that or he was so acutely aware of the mistakes he’d made that he was punishing himself by staying away from his kids. The more she knew about him, the more she suspected the latter.
“All right,” he said with a wry smile. “I’ll think about it.”
“you’ve been thinking about it for years. When are you going to do something?”
The smile turned to a bark of laughter. “God, you’re as bad as a snapping turtle.”
“Turtles nag?”
“The old saying is that if a snapping turtle bites you, it won’t turn loose until it hears thunder.”
She tilted her head. “I don’t think I’ve heard thunder since we’ve been here.”
“I know we haven’t. Okay, I promise I’ll call my kids.”
“And—?”
“And tell them I know I was a lousy father, but ask would they hate it if I saw them more often?” He made it a question, as if he wasn’t certain that was the correct answer, but his blue eyes were dancing.
She clapped her hands, like someone applauding a performing child.
“Smart-ass.” He was laughing aloud now, getting to his feet and taking her hand to pull her up and into his arms. “I was going to show you something special tonight, but now I think you’ll just get the same old, same old.”
If he thought that was punishment, he was way off target. Lily hid a smile as she pressed her face into his shoulder. She loved him so much she would enjoy her time with him down to the last minute, and not worry about whether or not he took this job his friend Frank wanted him to take. wasn’t that part of what she’d just been talking to him about, making the most of your time with the people you love, because you don’t know how long that time will be?
She wouldn’t think how unlucky she was to love him and lose him. Instead she would consider herself lucky for having met him at a time in her life when she had needed him so much.
The next day was another unusually sunny day, with the temperature warming as rapidly as it cooled down at night. By April, the daytime temperature would be in the nineties; by July, soaring over a hundred wouldn’t be unusual. But the weather in early January was pleasant, if sometimes a bit rainy, especially when compared to Paris at this time of year.
Chrisoula prepared them a lunch of meat patties, flavored with herbs and fried in olive oil, served on saffron rice. They ate on the terrace, enjoying the weather. Because the stones of the terrace reflected the sun’s heat, Lily wore a loose, gauzy white dress that she’d bought in town, though she had a shawl nearby in case she needed it. She liked being able to wear whatever she wanted without having to worry about whether it concealed her ankle holster, and she had embraced the island’s tourist fashions with enthusiasm. The locals probably thought she was crazy for wearing summer fashions in January, but she didn’t care. She wanted to wear sandals, and she had bought a silver anklet that made her feel feminine and carefree. She might stay on Evvoia even if Swain left, she thought. She loved it here.
“Who was your handler?” he asked abruptly, telling her that his thoughts had been far different from her lazy enjoyment of the day. “The guy who got you into the business. What was his name?”
“Mr. Rogers,” she said, smiling ironically.
He almost choked on his wine.
“He never gave me his first name, but you can bet it wasn’t Fred. It doesn’t matter; I doubt that was his real name anyway. Why are you asking?”
“I was watching you and thinking how young you look, and wondering what kind of bastard could approach a kid with a job like that.”
“The kind who gets the job done, regardless.”
After lunch she napped on one of the chaises on the terrace, and woke to incredible pleasure brought by Swain’s tongue. He had lifted her skirt to her waist and removed her underwear and knelt with his head between her spread thighs. Lily gasped, her body arching in delight even as she choked, “Chrisoula will see—”
“She left a few minutes ago,” Swain murmured, and gently slipped two of his fingers into her. She climaxed rapidly under that double stimulation, and was still quivering with the last spasms when he loosened his pants and covered her with his body. His penetration was smooth and slow, the fit perfect now after making love so many times during the past month. He was tender and attentive, holding off until she had climaxed a second time, then going deep and holding himself there while he shuddered with his own release.
Making love alfresco was wonderful, she thought after they had tidied themselves and she was once more completely dressed. The air had felt like silk on her skin, heightening her response. She stretched, utterly relaxed, and smiled at Swain when he brought over their glasses of wine. She took hers and he sat down on the chaise beside her legs, his warm hand sliding under her skirt to lazily caress her thigh.
“Why did Chrisoula leave so early?” she asked as she sipped the fragrant wine, thinking she hadn’t slept that long. Chrisoula hadn’t had time to prepare their dinner.
“She wanted to go to the market for something. I think.” Swain smiled. “Either that or a pig was on top of her house.”
“I’m betting it was the market.” Sometimes their attempts at communication had laughable results, but Swain threw himself into it with enthusiasm.
“Probably.” His stroking hand had worked its way down to her ankle. He played with the silver anklet, then lifted her foot and pressed a kiss to her ankle. “We could be having the pig for dinner, though, so we’ll see how far off I was in my translation.”
“What do you want to do for the rest of the afternoon?” she asked, finishing her wine and setting the glass aside. She didn’t know that she would be able to move a muscle. Two orgasms had left her bones feeling like butter. She hated to waste such a gorgeous day, though, so if he wanted to go into Karystos, she would make the effort.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Maybe read for a while. Sit right here and watch the bay. Count the clouds.” He patted her ankle, then stood up and walked to the terrace wall, where he stood, sipping occasionally from his own glass. She watched him, everything female in her appreciating the width of his shoulders and the narrowness of his ass, but especially enjoying that lazy, sexy saunter of his that said this was a man who took his time at what he did. Even Chrisoula responded to him, flirting and laughing, and she was a good twenty years older. Not to mention that when she flirted, he usually had no idea what she was saying, though that in no way kept him from replying to what he thought she’d said. Lily had no idea of the exact meaning, either, but she could tell from Chrisoula’s blushes and body language that she was definitely flirting.
A feeling of great lassitude swept over her and she let her eyes close. She was so sleepy, so relaxed . . . she shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine . . . it was putting her to sleep—
She forced her eyes open, and found Swain watching her with an expression on his face that she didn’t recognize, alert and watchful, no hint of humor at all.
Fool, an inner voice said. She had been caught in exactly the same way she had caught Salvatore Nervi.
She could feel the numbness now, spreading through her body. She tried to stand up, but she barely managed to sit before collapsing back against the chaise. What could she do, anyway? She couldn’t outrun what was already inside her.
Swain came back to squat beside the chaise. “Don’t fight it,” he said gently.
“Who are you?” she managed to ask, though she could still think clearly enough to figure it out. He wasn’t a Nervi employee, so there was only one other possibility. He was CIA; whether one of their black-ops personnel or a contract agent himself; the end result was the same. Whatever his reason was for helping her with the Nervis, after that was finished, he had completed his own mission. She had completely fallen for his act, but then she’d noticed before what a superb actor he was, and that should have been a warning. By then, however, she had already been in love with him.
“I think you know.”
“Yes.” Her eyelids were so heavy, and the numbness had spread to her lips. She fought for coherency. “What happens now?”
He stroked a strand of hair back from her face, his touch gentle. “You just go to sleep,” he whispered. She had never heard him sound so tender before.
No pain, then. That was good. She wasn’t going to die in agony. “Was it real? Any of it?” Or had every touch, every kiss, been a lie?
His eyes darkened, or she thought they did. It could be that her eyesight was fading. “It was real.”
“Then . . .” She lost her train of thought, fought to get it back. What was she—? Yes, she remembered now. “Will you . . .” She could barely speak, and she couldn’t see him at all. She swallowed, made an effort: “. . . kiss me while I sleep?”
She wasn’t certain, but she thought she heard him say, “Always.” She tried to reach out her hand to him, and in her mind she did. Her last thought was that she wanted to touch him.
Swain stroked her cheek, and watched a light breeze flirt with her hair. The pale strands stirred and lifted, fell back, lifted again as if they were alive. He bent down and kissed her warm lips, then sat holding her hand for a long time.
Tears burned his eyes. God damn Frank. He wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t budge from his original plan, and if Swain couldn’t do the job, he’d by God send someone who could.
Yeah, well. If it hadn’t been for the small matter of a mole that still had to be located, Swain would have told him what he could do with his fucking job. But he had the recording Blanc had gotten to him during that week of preparation for taking down the Nervi lab, and when he got back to Washington, he had that to take care of. He’d heard Lily stirring in the bedroom yesterday afternoon and hadn’t been able to tell Frank everything that was going on, just the gist of what Dr. Giordano had been doing and a brief argument about what Frank wanted him to do with Lily.
He had sent Chrisoula away this afternoon because he had wanted one more time with Lily, wanted to hold her close and look into those remarkable eyes as she came, wanted to feel her arms around him.
It was over now.
He kissed her one last time, then made the call.
Soon the unmistakable whump whump whump of a helicopter sounded over the mountain slope. It sat down on a flat spot just off the terrace, and three men and a woman got out. They worked silently, competently, wrapping Lily and preparing her for transport. Then one of the men said to the woman, “Get the feet,” and Swain whirled on him.
“Her feet,” he said savagely. “She’s a woman, not a thing. And she’s a fucking patriot. If you treat her with anything but respect, I’ll rip your guts out.”
The man eyed him with consternation. “Sure, man. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Swain clenched his fist. “I know. Just . . . go on.”
A few minutes later, the helicopter lifted off. Swain stood and watched it until it was a tiny black speck; then, his expression set and blank, he turned and went into the house.