“What did you do after you left?” Hood asked, wanting to talk instead of think.
“I moved to Paris,” Nancy said, “and I tried to get a job designing computer software. But there wasn’t a lot for me to do there. There wasn’t much of a market yet and there was a real protectionist thing going, keeping Americans from taking French jobs. So after burning through the blood money I’d been paid— it’s expensive to live in Paris, especially when you have to bribe officials because you can’t get a visa and have your name show up at the American Embassy— I moved to Toulouse and began working for the company.” “The company?” “The one I sold the secrets to,” she said. “I don’t want to tell you the name, because I don’t want you doing anything out of your famous white-knight spite. Because you know you would.” Nancy was right. He’d have gone back to Washington and found a dozen different ways for the U.S. government to lean on them.
Nancy said, “The not-so-funny thing was, I always suspected that the guy I sold those plans to was the one who turned me in, to force me to come over and work for him. Not because I was so brilliant, mind you— I stole my best idea, right?— but because he felt that if I depended on him I could never turn on him. I hadn’t wanted to go to him because I was ashamed of what I’d done, but I needed to work.” She smiled unhappily. “To top it all off, I failed at love repeatedly because I compared everyone to you.” “Gee,” he said, “I can’t tell you how much better that makes me feel.” “Don’t,” Nancy said. “Don’t be like that. I still loved you. I bought the Los Angeles Times at an international newsstand just to keep up on your activities. And there were times, so very many times, that I wanted to write or phone.
But I thought it was best not to.” “Then why did you decide to see me now?” Hood asked. He was in pain again, rocking between that and sadness. “Did you think it would hurt any less today?” “I couldn’t help myself,” she admitted. “When I heard that you were in Hamburg, I had to see you. And I think that you wanted to see me.” “Yes,” he said, “I ran after you in the hotel lobby. I wanted to see you. I needed to see you.” He shook his head.
“Jesus, Nancy. I still can’t believe it’s you.” “It is,” she said.
Hood looked into those eyes with which he had spent so many days and nights. The pull was both extraordinary and awful, a dream and a nightmare. His strength to resist them just wasn’t in the same class.
The cool twilight breeze chilled the perspiration along Hood’s legs and back. He wanted to hate her. Wanted to walk away from her. But what he wanted most of all was to go back in time and stop her from leaving.
Her eyes held him as she slipped her hands around his.
Her touch jolted him, then settled into an electric tingle that raced from his chest to his toes. And he knew he had to get away from her.
Hood stepped back. The electric connection broke. “I can’t do this,” he said.
Nancy said, “You can’t do what? Be honest?” She added a little jab, the kind she had always been so good at. “What did politics do to you?” “You know what I mean, Nancy. I can’t stay here with you.” “Not even for an hour? For coffee, to catch up?” “No,” Hood said firmly. “This is my closure.” She grinned. “This is not closure, Paul. This is anything but that.” She was right. Her eyes, her wit, her walk, her presence, her everything had breathed new life into something that had never quite died. Hood wanted to scream.
He stepped up beside her, looking north while she looked south. “Jesus, Nancy, I’m not going to feel guilty about this. You ran away from me. You left without an explanation and I met someone else. Someone who threw in her lot with me, who trusted me with her life and heart. I won’t do anything to cheapen that.” “I didn’t ask you to,” Nancy said. “Coffee isn’t betrayal.” “It is the way we used to drink it,” Hood said.
Nancy smiled. She looked down. “I understand. I’m sorry— for everything— sorrier than I can say, and I’m sad. But I do understand” She faced him. “I’m staying at the Ambassador and I’ll be here until this evening. If you change your mind, leave a message.” “I won’t change my mind,” Hood said. He looked at her.
“As much as I’d like to.” Nancy squeezed his hand. He felt the charge again.
“So politics didn’t corrupt you,” she said “I’m not surprised. Just a little disappointed.” “You’ll get over it,” Hood said. “After all, you got over me.” Nancy’s expression changed. For the first time Hood saw the sadness that had been hidden beneath her smile and the longing in her eyes.
“Do you believe that?” she asked.
“Yes. Otherwise, you couldn’t have stayed away.” She said, “Men really don’t understand love, do they?
Not on my best day, with the closest pretender to the Paul Hood throne, did I ever meet anyone as, bright or as compassionate or as gentle as you.” She leaned over and kissed him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I disturbed you by coming back into your life, but I wanted you to know that I never got over you, Paul, and I never will.” Nancy didn’t look at him as she walked back toward the edge of the park. But he looked at her. And once again Paul Hood was standing alone, two movie tickets in his wallet, suffering the absence of a woman he loved.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Thursday, 4:35 P.M., Hanover, Germany
As soon as he saw the gun, Bob Herbert threw his car into reverse and crushed the hand controlled gas pedal down. The sudden backward acceleration threw him hard against his shoulder harness, and he cried out as it snapped tight against his chest. But the bullets from the van missed the driver’s seat, pelting the hood and the front fender as the car rocketed away. Herbert continued moving away, even after his vehicle’s right rear side struck a street light and caromed off, skidding onto the road. Oncoming cars braked fast or swerved to avoid him. The drivers shouted and blasted their horns.
Herbert ignored them. He looked ahead and saw the front-seat passenger of the van lean out the window. The man trained the gun on Herbert.
“Sons of bitches don’t give up!”! Herbert yelled. Slowed because he had to do everything by hand, Herbert slammed the gas pedal down and spun the steering wheel to the left.
Then he braced himself against the wheel with his left arm.
Racing ahead, he quickly covered the fifteen feet which separated him from the van. He rammed the van’s left rear fender. Metal twisted and screamed as they collided, the van was thrown forward, and Herbert swung his Mercedes into the street. Still pressing hard on the gas, he raced past the driver’s side and sped ahead.
Traffic had now stopped well behind them and pedestrians were running away in all directions.
Then Herbert remembered the cellular phone. He scooped it up. “Mike, are you still there?” “Christ, didn’t you hear me shouting?” “No. Jesus, now I got two continents mad at me!” “Bob, what’s—” Herbert didn’t hear the rest. He dropped the phone in his lap and swore as a tram turned onto the street in front of him. Speeding up, he swept around it, putting the tram between him and the van. He hoped the gunman didn’t shoot the tram out of frustration and sheer cussedness.
Herbert retrieved the phone. “Sorry, General, I didn’t hear that.” “I said what’s going on?” “Mike, I’ve got these lunatics with guns who decided we had to have our own private Grand Prix in Hanover!” “Do you know where you are?” Rodgers asked.
Herbert glanced in his rearview mirror as the van screeched around the tram. “Hold on,” he said to Rodgers.
He set the phone down on the passenger’s seat and put both hands on the wheel as the van shot onto the road. As it raced after him, Herbert looked forward. Hanover was a blur as he raced onto Lange Laube, made a few quick turns, and was on Goethe Strasse. Fortunately, he realized, traffic was lighter than it might have been at this hour because people had stayed out of town during Chaos Days.
Herbert heard Mike Rodgers’s voice coming from far away. “Shit!” he said, snatching up the phone as he sped ahead. “Sorry, Mike. I’m here.” “Where exactly are you?” Rodgers asked.
“I’ve got no idea.” “Can you see any signs?” Rodgers interrupted.