The twin jet touched down on auxiliary fuel and came to a stop at the far end of the tiny runway. The airport was completely still. Usually host to VFR, or visual flight reference, air traffic; it was typically quiet after sunset. Tonight that stillness was ensured by six Marine Humvees stationed around its perimeter with orders to keep all civilians out. A single vehicle, a black Chevrolet Suburban, moved out to meet the plane. Behind its deeply smoked windows was a virtual hospital. Colonel Henderson met the plane, shook hands with Lieutenant Russell, then saw to it that Hans was transferred into the vehicle with a minimum of fuss. Even as the car pulled away, the C-20 gunned its engine into a takeoff roll. Despite its low tanks, it would not be allowed to tarry here; it had been routed back to Guantanamo for refueling and reassignment. by the following evening, both plane and pilot would be in Indonesia removing an operative who had successfully assassinated an errant banker for the IMF. As with the assignment just completed, the pilot would know nothing of these details, and would care less. The plane and its echo were gone almost as quickly as the Suburban. The Humvees fell in before and behind as the whole caravan vanished into the night. Within minutes, the only sound was the vibrant chorus of crickets and tree frogs signaling the beginning of another night’s struggle for food and procreation. 5
ST. MAURICE, SWITZERLAND
Elizabeth had not slept for thirty-six hours. The day before, on a Calvin Klein shoot, she had been gripped by a sudden lethargy. It was nearly the unshakable sort that Annie had described experiencing the year she had come down with Epstein-Barr-dozing in her chair between setups and reacting so slowly to the photographer’s directions that he had ended up screaming at her. Then came the dreaded huddle: the account exec, the art director and the client debating whether or not to scrap the day’s work and hire a new model. That’s when Elizabeth finally got herself together and forced herself to focus, so that by the end of the day they were all love-you-let’s-worktogether-soon again, thank God. But it was mortifying. She was a pro-no one had ever said less, not from her very first days as a catalogue model. She dragged herself back to her apartment and checked her messages. Nothing from Hans. She threw herself in bed, hoping for a deep, cleansing sleep, but instantly her mind switched into high gear. Sometime after midnight she got up and read, racing through most of Sense and Sensibility. It only left her heartsick for Hans, still worried stiff, and not one blink nearer to sleep. She had tossed aside Jane Austen, switching to a well-thumbed paperback edition of Alice in Wonderland, which at least felt closer to life as it really was. Then she did something she swore she would never do: she phoned Hans in his BMW, the only number she was allowed to call. There was no answer. The party she was trying to reach was, ac cording to the digitized voice, out of the calling area. Out of the calling area? Where was that? Had he taken off for Rome for a bowl of pasta? Why hadn’t he called her back? She was making herself tea in the predawn light, trying to think positively, when the phone rang. It was Annie and she was choking back tears. Either the world was contracting or Elizabeth was expanding like Alice, because she felt as if her head were pinned against the ceiling. “Annie, what is it?” she asked fearfully. “Lizzy, I have awful news.”
Elizabeth almost asked if it was Annie’s husband, Roland. But she knew it wasn’t. Then she seemed to go deaf. Annie was rattling on and on and she couldn’t make sense of the words. You thought something like this might happen. You had a premonition, you said so that day at lunch, didn’t you?” “A premonition?”
“I remember when he called you, you said to him-‘I’m not going to see you again.’ And then after that, you said, I don’t know what I mean.’ I thought you meant because you were breaking it off, but-” Elizabeth’s whole body went numb. “You’re talking about Hans.” “Oh, God. Oh, Lizzy. You’re in shock. I’m sorry. “No.” She struggled to breathe. “Tell me again. I’m here.” Then Annie was laying it all out in a broken rush of words. Motorists had noted the damaged guardrail the next morning. The first man to stop thought he had seen a charred wreck, far down below. Authorities had been called and climbers were sent down. “No,” said Elizabeth ferociously. “No.”
The phone fell from her hand onto the bed, and then she picked it up again. “It was his BMW, baby. He was in there. There were tire marks, Lizzy-the car skidded over two hundred feet. They say he was going Way too fast. His wife told reporters he was angry when he left the house. Somebody had screwed up at a bank or something, and he was going to give them hell. Either that, or he fell asleep at the wheel. I’m so sorry.” “He didn’t fall asleep,” said Elizabeth. “Well, but how do you know that-”
“What about the other car?”
“What other car? There was no other car. He lost control-” “Annie, I was talking to him!”
“You were talking to him?”
“Yes! He yelled out-swore-as if something had gone wrong-it had to be another car. Then the phone went dead-” “Baby, there was no other driver involved. Lizzy?” “It’s okay,” said Elizabeth, sinking to the floor and sliding into a corner. Her mouth had gone dry and she felt like she was looking at everything through a darkening glass. “Do you have to work today?” Annie asked gently. “We finished yesterday.” And then she was crying, cold and terrified like a child lost in an ice storm. “Lizzy? Lizzy, sweetheart, are you still there? I’m on my way over. Hang tight, okay?”
Hans Brinkman’s death sent shock waves through the entire European Economic Community. His circle of friends was considerable, and the roster of his connections, sycophants and admirers larger still. Those who were allowed past the cemetery gates into the invitation-only funeral numbered over four hundred. They filled the chapel of Zurich’s Fluntern Cemetery and spilled out onto the surrounding lawns where they listened beneath the twohundred-year-old trees to the eulogy, broadcast over loudspeakers. Annie, who had insisted on driving Elizabeth to the funeral, was late picking her up. By the time they both arrived at the cemetery, Elizabeth was dismayed to find they were limited to listening with the crowd outside. “It’s a closed coffin anyway, I think,” Annie said lamely. “Then I need to see the coffin.”
“Lizzy, I’m sorry, I needed to stop for gas. They wouldn’t have let you in anyway. “No, they wouldn’t, would they?” She was suddenly conscious of all the casual onlookers, the funeral geeks, the not-quite-important-enoughs, fanning out on every side. That’s what I was to Hans, she thought. Not quite in his life. But no, she realized, with sudden ferocity-they had connected that night on the phone. She had sensed a deep and intuitive oneness with him then, a secret intimacy neither had dared to describe. I want us to be together, she thought-wondering at the intensity, the virtual bodily hunger to be close to him now in death. Was it a feeble, selfish concept, the need for closure? No, no way. She needed to be there, in the midst of the real mourners, the ones who had cared for him. If she had her way she would throw herself on the coffin and cry out his name. Behind her, two men in blue pin-striped suits were eyeing her, talking in whispers. Yvette’s PIs, assigned to keep her from causing a scandal? There was another car-she was sure of it! Annie had said there wasn’t, damn it! She wrenched her attention back to the voices coming over the PA. A minister was concluding his remarks, speaking of the transience of life and of God’s surrounding arms in a place untouched by earth’s sorrows and the ravages of time. Next up were colleagues and old schoolmates, all of whom spoke eloquently of Hans’s attributes as a visionary banker, Olympic skier, pilot and sportsman. For a full hour she listened intently to the tributes to Hans’s tenacity, vigor, intelligence, ambition and cunning. She kept waiting to hear just one person talk about how Hans had touched his heart, but no one did. Not a soul. It sent a chill through her body.
When they were about to bring the casket out for burial, the guests Were invited to the grave site. Elizabeth and Annie walked together down a broad avenue of elms that sang with cicadas. She felt briefly heartened-at least now she was going to see him laid to rest. Her pulse returned to normal. But when they arrived at the designated sector, they found it cordoned off, with men checking names against a list. People not on the list were politely turned away and invited to sign the guest book in the chapel. There was no way Elizabeth was going to be on that list. “It’s the wife,” Annie growled. “If she’s not excluding people, it’s not a real event.” She gave a worried frown: Elizabeth’s face had gone pale with an emotion she couldn’t identify. “Come on,” Annie tried. “You’re just torturing yourself. Why don’t we go get drunk.” Elizabeth sadly shook her head. “Annie, don’t be offended, but I think I need to be alone. You go on and see him buried. You can tell me about it after, that’ll help.” Annie thought about that for a moment, and then rejected it. “I’ll drop you off at home.” “No, I can grab a cab,” said Elizabeth. The wheels were starting to turn. “I’ll just write something in the book at the chapel, and maybe take a walk.” “Lizzy, are you sure? You look a little unsteady.” “A little, I guess. But, Annie, I’m fine,” Elizabeth assured her, and kissed her on both cheeks. She waited until Annie headed off, past the two men in pinstriped suits, one of whom had a camera slung over his shoulder. She waited until Annie was out of their sight. Then she turned and went the other way. She didn’t go to the chapel-what could she possibly write? Instead, she went out onto the avenue and walked up Ziirichbergstrasse, along the cemetery’s outer wall. An unseasonable thaw had melted the snow; water was streaming in the gutters and the sky was far too bright for her mood, which was moving toward black. A couple walked by, laughing, arms around each other, the girl’s hand joining the boy’s in his coat pocket. Elizabeth put her head down and walked faster. Across the street was the north end of the Zurich Zoo, marked by another tall, ivy-covered wall. She could hear some sort of animal baying-a deep, repetitive ugh-ugh-ugh that filled her with dread. She felt trapped between the unknowable realm of death on one side and the unfathomable wildness of instinct on the other. A hundred yards down the length of the cemetery’s southern wall she stopped and looked around carefully. There was a tree that had grown between the sidewalk and the eight-foot-high wall. It had rough bark and was straight as a pole. Without another thought, she put her back to the rough gray brick of the wall, braced her feet on the trunk of the tree and went up it like a rock climber scaling a facade. Moments later she dropped down the other side of the wall inside the cemetery, finding herself in a stand of birches with no sign of a live human being anywhere in sight. She felt better already.