old secrets stay buried, then Max would try to control him his own way.
It was both infuriating and touching.
When Anna arrived–they were sharing the room as Mr. and Mrs. David
Paine–he embraced her, placing his face next to hers and feeling some
of his sense of anxiety ebb.
Feeling grimy from the long flight, they each showered. Anna took a
long time, emerging from the bathroom in a terry-cloth robe, her dark
brown hair combed straight back, her skin glowing.
As she went to her suitcase to pick out clothes, Ben said, “I don’t want
you to see Lenz alone.”
She didn’t look up. “Oh, is that right?”
“Anna,” he said, exasperated, “we don’t even know who Jurgen Lenz really
is.”
Holding a blouse in one hand and a navy skirt in the other, she turned
to face him. Her eyes flashed. “At this point, it doesn’t matter. I
have to talk to him.”
“Look, whoever he is, we can assume that he was at least involved in the
murder of eight old men around the world. My brother, too. And it’s a
plausible assumption that he’s become a principal in a conspiracy that,
if Chardin is right, has no real outer bounds. Lenz knows my face, and
now he no doubt knows where I’ve been. So it’s a fair assumption that
he knows I’ve been traveling with you, which means he may well have seen
a photograph of you. It isn’t safe for you to go see this man.”
“I’m not disputing that, Ben. We don’t have the luxury of choosing
between the safe thing and the dangerous thing: whatever we do at this
point will involve danger. Even doing nothing. Besides, if I’m killed
shortly after asking him questions about a series of murders around the
world, he’d immediately bethefocusof suspicion and I seriously doubt he
wants that.”
“What even makes you think he’ll see you?”
She set the clothes down on the edge of the bed.
“The best way to play him is not to play him.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.”
“This is a man who’s used to being in control, used to manipulating
people and events. Call it arrogance or call it curiosity, but he’ll
want to see me.”
“Listen to me, Anna …”
“Ben, I can take care of myself. I really can.”
“Obviously,” he protested. “It’s just that ” He stopped. She was
looking at him strangely. “What?”
“You’re the protective type, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know about protective, exactly. I’m just ”
She approached him, examining him as if he were an exhibit in a museum.
“When we met, I just assumed you were another rich, spoiled,
self-centered preppy.”
“You were probably right.”
“No. I don’t think so. So was that your role in the family–the
caretaker?”
Embarrassed, Ben didn’t know how to reply. Maybe she was right, but for
some reason he didn’t want to say it. Instead, he drew her close. “I
don’t want to lose you, Anna,” he said quietly. “I’ve lost too many
people in my life.”
She closed her eyes and hugged him tight; both of them were agitated,
nervous, exhausted, and yet as they embraced a moment of calm passed
between them. He inhaled her delicate floral scent, and something in
him melted.
Then, gently, she withdrew. “We have a plan, and we’ve got to follow
it, Ben,” she said, her voice soft but resolute, and she dressed
quickly. “I have to make a pickup at the DHL office, and then make a
business call.”
“Anna,” Ben said.
“I’ve got to go. We can talk later.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” said Officer Burt Connelly. He had been on the 166
Virginia highway patrol for only six months, and he still wasn’t
accustomed to the sight of roadside carnage. He felt his stomach
heaving, scurried to the side of the road, and vomited. A splash got on
his crisp blue uniform, and he wiped it off with a tissue. Then he
tossed the tissue out, too.
Even in the low light of the early evening, he could see only too
clearly the blood spattered across the windscreen and the man’s head on
the dashboard. It had been severed from the body and horribly flattened
by the impact–the “second collision,” as they called it, which was the
collision of the passenger inside the crashed vehicle itself.
Connelly’s partner, Officer Lamar Graydon, had been on highway patrol
for more than a year. He’d seen a few gruesome accidents before, and he
knew how to keep his lunch down.
“It’s a bad one, Burt,” Graydon said, walking over and patting his
partner’s back. A sort of weary bravado played in his brown eyes. “But
I’ve come across worse.”
“Did you see the guy’s head!”
“At least there’s no little kids involved. Let me tell you, last year,
I was at an accident scene where a baby got ejected through the open
window of an Impala, thrown thirty feet in the air. Like a goddamn rag
doll. Now, that was horrible.”
Connelly coughed a few times, and straightened up. “Sorry,” he said.
“It’s just that guy’s face … I’m O.K. now. Ambulance on the way?”
“Should be here in ten minutes. Not that he’s feeling any pain.”
Graydon nodded toward the decapitated accident victim.
“So what’s the situation here? SVF?” Statistically, a single-vehicle
fatality was the most common sort.
“Not a chance,” Graydon said. “No guardrail does that. This is what
happens when you slam into one of those Kenworth car haulers, and there
are plenty of ’em on this highway. With monsters like that, the back
hangs low, and it’s one flat steel edge like a blade. If you’re behind
one of those things and it stops short, either you duck or it takes your
head off. I’ll betcha that’s what you’re looking at.”
“Then what happened to the other guy? Where’s the goddamn truck?”
Connelly was starting to regain a sense of self-possession. Oddly, he
even felt a little hungry again.
“Looks like he decided not to stick around,” Graydon said.
“Well, are we going to find it?”
“I’ve radioed it in. Dispatcher’s got the info. Between you and me,
though, I wouldn’t bet money on it. Thing to do right now is try to ID
the guy. Search the pockets.”
Though the top of the red Taurus was smashed in, the door on the
driver’s side opened easily. Connelly put on latex gloves before
rummaging through the headless man’s pockets; that was procedure when
clothing was blood-soaked.
“Give me a name, and I’ll radio that in, too,” Graydon called out.
“Driver’s license says Dupree, Arh’ss Dupree,” Connelly said. “Lives on
Glebe Road, in Arlington.”
“That’s all we need to know,” Graydon said. “And you don’t have to
freeze your ass off, Burt. We can wait in the patrol car now.”
The building that housed the Lenz Foundation was, Bauhaus style, all
glass and marble. The lobby was flooded with light, furnished simply
with white leather chairs and sofas.
Anna asked the receptionist to call the office of the director. That he
was at the foundation she’d already verified with an earlier phone call.
“Who shall I say wishes to see Dr. Lenz?” she inquired.
“My name is Anna Navarro. I’m an agent with the U.S. Department of
Justice.”
She’d earlier considered and rejected the idea of approaching him under
some false alias. But as she’d told Ben, she’d decided that the best
way to play him was not to play him. If Lenz did even a cursory
background check, he’d learn of her outlaw status. But would that make
him less likely to see him, or more? If their theories about Alan
Bartlett were correct, Jorgen Lenz might already know a fair amount
about her. But he wouldn’t know–couldn’t know–precisely what she had
learned, and might have conveyed to others. She had to rely upon his
curiosity, his arrogance, and, most of all, his desire to control the
situation. He would want to know whether she posed a threat to him, and
he would want to assess that himself.
The receptionist picked up her desk phone and spoke quietly, then handed
Anna the handset. “Please.”
The woman on the phone was courteous but firm. “I’m afraid Dr. Lenz
has a full schedule today. Perhaps you’d like to make an appointment
for another day? I’m afraid that with the International Children’s
Health Forum, all the people here have their hands full.”
He had to be evading her, but was that because he’d heard her
institutional affiliation, or because he already knew her name? Maybe
the woman hadn’t even bothered to convey the message.
“It really can’t wait,” Anna said. “I need to see him as soon as
possible on an extremely urgent matter.”
“Can you tell me what you wish to speak with Dr. Lenz about?”
She hesitated. “Please tell him it’s a personal matter.”
She put the phone down and paced nervously around the lobby.
Here I am in the lair of the beast, she thought. The heart of darkness,