The wise thing, the soul-sparing thing, would be to keep everything to himself. Still, he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he had destroyed the covenant between them, and that he was in danger of expulsion from the haven of stability and warmth he had known with her for so many years. Worse, he wasn’t in this alone. There was this woman, this amazing nameless woman to whom he was in no way entitled, whose very existence threatened his sanity and. more to the point, whose own safety was now imperiled by events he had set in motion. Don’t fool yourself. be admonished himself, you’re responsible for what happened, however it happened, and you owe it to her to see that she gets out of this safely. You’re going to keep your promise: you have to see her again. Or was that only his lust talking. . .
No. It was much more than lust, he knew that. Have you ever known anything with Beatrice like what you’ve just experienced? he asked himself, pointblank. The question terrified him. In the early years, perhaps her passion was at its height. But had his own passion and sensitivity been equal to hers? Not until tonight, with another woman, this woman, with years of experience behind him and a new body allowing him to use that experience, had he felt such bliss. And it was no dream. It was real, as real as his betrayal of everything de-cent and principled. You selfish bastard, he raged, first you sell your soul, and now you’ve sold out your marriage. At least have the decency to deliver them both to the devil without excuses. And for God’s sake, use your brain and figure out how in hell she had come here in the first place! More specifically, who on earth had e-mailed her? There was only one person he could think of: Alex Davies. Alex must have been nosing around in the Fountain files, just as Beatrice had claimed and Wolfe had subsequently denied. The tracking of the clones might well have included wives or lovers, so Alex could know the name of Hans’s lover. And if Alex Davies knows about the girl, who else does? And how do I confront them? He stopped running, ragged and spent, facing the answer to that question. He couldn’t not without putting the young woman from the beach even more at risk than she was now. Jesus, he thought, as he made his way quietly through the palm grove toward the compound, you really have fucked up this time! Nearing the condominiums, he slowed, trying to make as little sound as possible. Then he became aware of a high-pitched whine in his ear, like the wire-thin hum of an ancient television. He stopped, listened, then realized what it was: someone had turned the infrared sensors back on. Just then something big and fast slammed into him from behind and knocked him flying. “Freeze. Do not move! Get your fucking hands over your head!” More shapes-heavily armed men in dark uniforms tearing in on him. In a daze he realized he had been tackled by Special Forces guards and that he now had a half-dozen high-powered weapons pointed at his head, off-safety and ready to fire. “I’m Dr. Peter Jance!” he screamed. And then, remembering: “Junior!” Somebody kicked him hard in the ribs-once, twice. Next he heard new shouts and a woman screaming, Beatrice’s and Wolfe’s voices. “What the hell you think you’re doing, you idiots!” Wolfe raged. The guards fell back. Beatrice ran to Peter, helping him to his feet. Out of the darkness Oscar Henderson emerged, barking out orders. The guards stood to attention. Peter rose slowly, holding his ribs, watching as more men came running from every direction, securing the perimeter. Against what he hadn’t a clue. Henderson took in the scene with a glance, his mouth twisted in contempt. “My, my, is it Spring Break already?”
Peter wheeled on him. “I was just taking a jog on the beach. What are you running here, Henderson, a goddamn prison camp?” Henderson surveyed him coldly, his voice low and tight. “No, a military base, Dr. Jance. Home to three thousand fighting men, fourteen commands and an undisclosed number of highly sensitive and secret projects, of which you are one. He bellied up to Peter as though Peter’s being a young man now gave Henderson the right to deck him if he so chose. “And sensitive, secret projects do not go jogging on the beach at night without an escort. Not on my watch.” He spun on Wolfe. “I suggest a leash.” He stalked away with his men, leaving Peter to face Beatrice. She looked at his wet, rumpled clothes, his unruly hair and his evasive eyes, then walked away without a word. There was a moment of awful silence. Then Peter felt Wolfe’s hand at the small of his back, guiding him toward the restricted wing. “Nice job, Peter,” Wolfe said. “Really firstrate. How far did you get?” Bite your tongue, thought Peter. Whatever you say to Wolfe tonight, Beatrice will hear it tomorrow. “Look,” he said, trying to take the edge out of his voice, “I’m not a lab rat on a running wheel. If I want to run on the beach at night instead of using your goddamn treadmill, I will.” “And the risk to your cerebral arteries be damned.” “They’re my cerebral arteries. Unless, of course, you don’t want any more work out of me. “Now who’s making threats?” Wolfe said through his teeth and then pulled back. “I’ll arrange for bodyguards who can keep up with you. “Alone,” said Peter.
“Can’t allow it.”
“I run alone. That’s a deal-breaker.”
Now Wolfe was scrutinizing him. “If I could be sure that’s all you were doing.” Say nothing, thought Peter. “All I’m doing,” said Peter, “is clearing out the cobwebs.” Wolfe cocked an eyebrow with suspicion. “And they’re cleared out? You’re back with the program?” Wolfe’s eyes were bright, daring Peter to say no. “Back with the program,” said Peter as he watched Wolfe’s expression stiffen. “That’s good to hear. You can run on any beach on the base at any time.” Wolfe stuck out his hand. Peter shook it, feeling Wolfe’s long bony fingers tighten around his knuckles. He gave me life, now he thinks he owns me, thought Peter. “How’re your ribs?” Wolfe asked.
“They hurt like hell, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Wolfe said. “Now let’s get you into the clinic.” The two old friends walked off together, side by side. That way, Peter knew, neither had to turn his back on the other.
By the time Elizabeth got back to the Casa del Frances, it was four in the morning. On the return trip from the beach she had been jumpy and paranoid, circling two blocks in a figure-eight before parking her car outside the gate. She, too, was unable to pass through security, in this case the white-haired guard in the folding chair. He had locked the gate, forcing her to ring the bell. But he didn’t respond. She could see him in his tiny booth next to the driveway, propped against the wall, his pearly-white scar visible in the moonlight. She leaned on the bell until a light came on in a downstairs room, and then Ivor Greeley appeared in the door in an old terry cloth bathrobe, carrying a set of keys on a big ring. “We usually don’t have guests coming back this late,” he grumbled. “Ivor, I’m sorry. I tried to wake the guard, but he’s not even moving.” Greeley threw a look at the old man, then called, “Toro!” The old man lurched forward, his blue-veined lids popping open. Greeley patted Elizabeth’s shoulder, noting her soggy clothes. “You just have to know the trick. He used to be a matador in Mexico City. Got himself all busted up when he overstayed his welcome. Somebody had to give him a job.” “Not much in the way of security, though, do you think?” said Elizabeth, with a backward glance at the street. Ivor shrugged. “You didn’t get in, did you?” He walked back into the hotel while the ex-matador made an elaborate show of relocking the gate. Elizabeth went straight to her room, double-locked the door, lay back on her bed and tried to piece together the night’s events. First, why was Hans here? And why had his death been faked? Who was that in the morgue photographs? Who was that in his coffin? No answers made sense. Drugs? A Colombian cartel working through the islands toward Miami? Or had he embezzled some huge amount of money that now had its rightful owners putting out a hit on him? No, she decided, it’s something even more bizarre than that. The thunder on the island, the military bases-it must be CIA. Or black ops. The career in finance, the high-profile marriage, were they part of a cover story or was that really Hans? He hadn’t known about the email, though he had tried to pretend otherwise-she had seen that in his eyes. The kid in the Range Rover, that was news to him as well. Bad news. Who had summoned her down here if not Hans? And why? Her unshakable feeling of having been to Vieques before, almost as if she had lived here as a child, what did that have to do with anything? She thought of Rose-Anne-how devastated she had been at Hans’s death, how gamely she had tried to rebound from her grief. Would Hans put his own mother through such agony with no warning? Only if he were a completely different man from the one she had known. But wasn’t he?