Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

No, he told himself. It’s Leon. I’m ready for the task, the trip. But Leon is another story.

He was ominous, pure and simple. Sometimes it felt as if he knew more about Oliver than Simon and his mother ever did. As he navigated the last bend and the cottage itself veered into view, he recalled the phone call he had made to tell the caretaker about Oliver’s death, just weeks earlier. “All right, then,” Leon had said in response, and that was all. As if he had been expecting it for a long time. As if he expected Simon to say something more. But it was just, “All right, then.” They had disconnected with scarcely another word.

It was the last time Simon had communicated with the groundskeeper, save for the message that he had sent from Ryan’s estate.

Simon killed the engine and sat there, listening to the car ticking and popping in the high-altitude chill. He hadn’t realized how fast dusk could claim the day on this tiny, ancient Mediterranean isle. It was dark enough to require headlights, just to see the shadows of the overgrown trees at the edge of the clearing.

He turned and put a hand on Samantha’s hip. “Sam,” he said gently. “We’re here.”

She startled out of her sleep, surprised and frightened, if only for a moment. It was how she had awakened every time since their escape from England. Simon hated seeing the fear in her eyes; he was grateful that it faded so quickly these days. He was grateful it faded at all.

She looked around, through the windows on all sides, and a faint smile crept across her face. “Look at that,” she said. “It hasn’t changed a bit.” The smile was sweet and painful at once. She hasn’t forgotten, Simon thought. And neither have I.

“HEY!”

Something banged against the side of the car. Simon shouted involuntarily and spun around to confront a thin white face hovering outside the glass.

It was Andrew.

“HEY!” he said again, his voice muffled by the glass. “Welcome to bloody Corsica, you git! You’re late!”

Simon forced himself to take a deep breath, then opened the car door. “We are not,” he said. “We’re absolutely on time.”

He climbed out to see Ryan stepping carefully, down the wooden steps (the same ones Simon and his father had repaired, decades before); Hayden was behind him, leaning against the cottage itself, his arms were crossed and he was scowling as usual.

“Welcome,” Ryan said. “As you can see: you’re the last to arrive.”

“And about bloody time,” Hayden grumbled. “We thought maybe you two had lost your way.”

“You know,” Andrew said as he pulled Sam’s luggage from the vehicle’s boot, “you said this was your dad’s cottage. You never mentioned it was more like a castle.” The structure rose behind him like a Mediterranean fortress. Most of the lights in the building were off; only the window of the main room and the entrance itself glowed with a faint light.

Simon felt Oliver’s presence even though he knew he was far, far away. He looked up at the two-story building, and immediately picked out the narrow window that opened into his father’s study, centered above the entry. The curtains were drawn-as usual-and the room was pitch-black.

As always, he told himself. Just as he remembered it.

“Well?” Andrew asked, moving impatiently. “How do we get in?”

Simon started to answer-

— when he spotted Leon’s formidable silhouette standing at the end of the drive, waiting for them like an apparition.

Leon hadn’t changed since Simon had last seen him, almost ten years earlier. His hair had grayed slightly, but the life he lived in these mountains seemed to have preserved him. His weathered skin and strong features were a testament to his hard, steady, relentless way of life.

Simon approached him slowly, painfully aware of the crunch of the gravel pathway under his feet. He paused several feet away.

“Leon, thank-”

Leon’s hand went up and stopped him, as if to say “no thanks necessary.” His voice, carrying a hint of a French accent, rumbled from deep in his chest. “This way,” he said, and gestured toward the entrance.

The chill in the air was sharper than ever as they approached the ghostly cottage. “How long have you been here?” Simon asked Andrew as they followed the groundskeeper across the drive.

“About half an hour,” he said. “We haven’t gotten any farther than the front door. He wouldn’t hear of it, until you arrived.”

Simon nodded. For some reason, he felt Oliver’s presence here at the cottage far more profoundly than he had ever felt it in London, perhaps because this hideaway had always been his father’s place and no one else’s. Oliver had always felt more at home here than in London.

“I’m surprised Oliver never told me about this place,” Hayden mumbled, gently grazing an olive branch on his way in.

“Please,” said Leon as he stood next to the door, gesturing for everyone to step in.

The temperature inside the cottage didn’t seem too different than outside, but at least the rising wind was cut off as Leon slammed the door behind him, making Samantha stare like a wounded deer.

She couldn’t keep her eyes off Leon. She seemed both fascinated and terrified by him, just as she had been years earlier.

The foyer was almost bare; only three cabinets and hanging art served as showcases for relics from Oliver’s travels. The large staircase at the far end led directly upstairs to Oliver’s bedroom and his private study. Downstairs, the foyer opened into a wide, low-ceilinged sitting room-the great room, Simon suddenly remembered. That’s what his father and Leon had always called it. The floor was covered with Armenian rugs from Oliver’s travels to the Middle East; the river stone fireplace at the far end was already stoked and alight with a huge, crackling fire casting a warm glow through the room.

It was amazing to Simon how Leon had managed to keep the cottage exactly as he remembered it. After everyone had entered, Leon stumped across the great room and carefully added two more branches to the fire. It crackled, almost appreciatively.

Ryan grabbed a bottle of wine from the huge central table. It was already opened and sitting next to a half-filled glass. He turned it quizzically, squinting as he searched for the label.

“Don’t bother,” Samantha said with a hint of her old charm. “It’s local.”

There were a few pieces of cheese on a plate next to it. Apparently this had been Leon’s dinner prior to their arrival.

Samantha began to tour the walls in a long, slow circuit like a child in a museum. Hayden scanned the collection of old, often-moldering books scattered around the room. Simon, on the other hand, watched Leon, preparing himself for the conversation he had been anticipating for over a week.

Leon barely glanced at him as he left the room, apparently to retrieve something. Simon, startled, mumbled, “Excuse me for a moment,” and followed him down the hall, toward the stairway that led down into the basement kitchen.

“Leon!”

There was no response. He followed him down the steps and entered a remarkably well-appointed and excruciatingly clean kitchen, about as large as a master bedroom.

“Leon.”

The caretaker stopped by a glassed-in cabinet and turned to face him. He said nothing. His expression was guarded, carefully neutral.

“I never had a chance to explain everything to you,” Simon told him.

Leon nodded, just once, then turned to pull wine glasses out of the cupboard one by one. “Not necessary,” he said. “I understand.”

“You know we’re going to leave here in the morning?”

“I know.”

He turned back, glasses for all of them somehow held in his two massive hands. He looked directly at Simon, into Simon, for the first time.