Elizabeth heard the tap on her window twice before she realized it was him trying to get her attention. Her heart leapt as she raced down the tiled stairway to the lobby. There she found Peter, disoriented, soaked and shivering, face pale as paper, eyes glazed. And he had also lost the power of speech. It was all she could do to get him up to her room and strip off his soggy clothes. She dried him with a towel and rubbed some color back into his hands, then helped him into her bed, pulling the covers over him. She sat beside him, finally having the time to be astonished at his condition. “What happened, Hans? Sweetheart, you can tell me. What’s going on?” At the sound of the endearment, Peter’s whole body started shaking again and he held on to her for dear life. He was terrified-and not just of losing his mind. As a result of his exertions, his entire left side had gone numb, just as it had blanked out after the operation. Both his hearing and eyesight were blinking on and off like Christmas lights. The strain of the swim, following Henderson’s stranglehold, might well have dislodged one of the sensitive splices of nerve at the back of his throat. His heart was pumping harder than it ever had before, as though desperately trying to force enough blood through the still-brittle, seventy-six-year-old vessels in his brain. He was an accident waiting to happen, an old man riding a fiery stallion and he couldn’t let go of his fear. When he could finally form a sentence, he found he was afraid to speak. “That kid you saw. At the Azure Horizon. Did he have wild blond hair? Looked rather strange?” “Yes.”
Okay, it was Alex. “Was there anyone with him?” “Not that I saw.”
“No military man? A colonel? Ham-faced, big jaw, bulging temples? Brutallooking guy? Doesn’t ring a bell?” She stared at him, a terror in her warm gray eyes. The same color as Beatrice’s, he realized, the irises bright, the white clear, the way his wife’s eyes used to be. Her voice, too, was a throaty alto. And then he thought: Cod help you, Jance, that’s the oldest dodge known to man. Beatrice, I just couldn’t help myself, she reminded me so much of you. No, you weasel, that’s your hard-on talking. In that respect, his circulation was working perfectly. “This colonel, does he know I’m here? At this hotel?” “If he doesn’t,” said Peter, “he’ll figure it out pretty quick.” “How? Why? Hans, what is this all about?” He couldn’t tell her, but he could prepare her. “You would hate me if you knew. And I don’t want you to hate me.” “Why not?”
It was out before he could censor himself. “You mean too much to me.” You bastard, he thought. Tell her she’s got to leave-that’s what you came to do, not lead her on. He was starting to shake again, and she was squeezing his hand. She looked at him, took a breath, then asked “Hans, are you CIA?” All right, he thought, you can buy some time here. “If you think I’m CIA” he said, attempting a smile, “then the Agency has a bigger image than they think.” “Those photos of your corpse, those were faked, weren’t they? The accident?” “More or less,” he said, feeling his soul slipping through the fingers of this half-assed lie. “And your mother? She doesn’t know, does she? Or was she lying to me?” “She doesn’t know.” Cod, he thought, how many other people are at risk here? “Hans, she’s suffering.”
“I know,” said Peter doggedly. “I couldn’t tell her. It would have put her in jeopardy.” And that’s why you have to go, he thought, but still couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Do you want to get out? Is that why you’re in trouble?” “Yes,” he said. This finally was the truth, even if it was one he had been afraid to fully admit to himself. And why this fear? Because Beatrice was still loyal to the cause? Perhaps, he thought, it would be noble to think this was the only reason. But at that very moment, he heard himself blurt out another. “I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said. She kissed him on the forehead. “I know, Hans,” she said with a wonderful tenderness. “Your mom told me.” He pieced that together as best he could. But a subtle shift was taking place. He no longer wanted to know more about Hans. Now he wanted to know more about this woman. “Won’t they start to miss you at home?” “Yes, sure, the career, I guess. And Annie.” “I would think so,” he said. “You really should go back.” She shrugged, as if it were already too late. “My agency, they’ve lost interest. After you died’ I went to pieces. Lost some bookings.” An actress? A singer? A model? She was studying him gravely. “I even slept with somebody else,” she said. He felt a stab of jealousy and it thrilled him. “Listen, I understand, I disappeared on you-” “I did it to find you. Because,” she said, “I love you, too. Incidentally.” His heart swelled. “You took an awful chance.” “Story of my life. Hans, did you mean what you said just now? About getting out?” She was in front of him, cross-legged, excited, sweeping back her hair. “Yes.”
“Then why don’t we? I can’t stand it any more if you’re not there. I think about you nonstop. Back in St. Maurice I wasn’t sure about us. I was starting to think I was some sort of masochist for staying with you. But everything feels so different now-” “The danger,” he said.
She gave him a peculiar look. “No. It’s not just the danger. It’s you. I feel so close to you now. Before, you were so impossible.” “Maybe I still am,” said Peter. Tell her. Now. “No. You’ve changed. I can feel that we’ll make it work now. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done, if you really want to be with me, that’s all that matters.” Her brow furrowed. “Do you have your passport with you?” Passport. “Not on me.”
“Where is it? Are you in a hotel? I could go get it if you’re still feeling woozy. “You can’t. It’s on the base.”
She remembered that razor-wired gate, the armed guard, and felt a chill. “Is it safe to go back there? Maybe you shouldn’t.” “I have to. My traveler’s checks, my passport, everything’s back there.” Come on, he thought, you owe her this much: “This isn’t going to be easy. There’s someone else on the base.” She stopped. He could feel her defenses come up. “A woman?” she asked. “Well, yes.”
“Is Yvette here with you?” she asked, as if it all might be one vast conspiracy now, involving even his wife. “No,” he said. “lt’s not that. Not Yvette…” He paused. He was getting in way over his head. “You don’t know her, believe me. But I can’t just abandon this person, there’s too much danger.” “Someone involved in this thing with you?” she asked almost shyly. “Yes. Extremely involved. Very much at risk. And you, you’re already in danger-” She nodded slightly, trying to make sense of it. “The man you mentioned? This colonel?” Peter took her hand. Looked in her eyes. About this he could speak the truth. “He wields a lot of power-I can’t begin to describe it,” he said, seized in the instant with a sense of his own mortality and with a frightening realization that his coming to her that night was completely rash. The project was all that Henderson or any of them cared about. No one was indispensable, including him, especially with his half-drunk boast to Freddy Wolfe that the success of the new weapon was a fait accompli. In doing that, he now realized, he had put himself fatally at risk. Inside, he laughed bitterly at himself. The irony was that he had been trying to convince Wolfe of his loyalty, as if his words might speak louder than his actions. “How much money do you have? Enough to rent a boat?” “Sure, with my faithful Visa.”
“Do you know how to handle one?”
“I’m sure I could figure it out, but why-” “Because they may be watching the airport. Do you understand how serious this is?” She nodded, undaunted, even excited. “And you’re coming with me?” He steeled himself. “That remains to be seen. “I understand,” she said, eyes dimming with disappointment. “You’re keeping your options open.” “I’m thinking about your safety,” he said firmly. “As well as mine. Tomorrow, midnight, four hundred yards off the coast, halfway down the southern stretch of the military zone, just past that bioluminescent bay where we met.” Where we met again, he thought, wincing to himself. But she hadn’t picked up on it. Her gray eyes were bright. “Midnight. I’ll be there.” “The boat has to be big enough to get us to Puerto Rico.” “Then what?”