Iris Johansen - Deadlock

Hard as a diamond.

"I'LL BE KNOCKING ON YOUR door in two minutes," he said, when Emily picked up the phone over an hour later. "Sorry if I woke you.

"You didn't wake me. I couldn't sleep. Is something wrong? Why do you want to-" But Garrett had already hung up. Emily had just gotten out of the bed and turned on the light when Garrett knocked. "What is it? Why are you-"

"Your clothes." He set the suitcase beside the door.

She felt a rush of relief. "Oh, is that all? I thought you-" She stopped as she saw his expression.

"We have to talk." He came into the room and shut the door. "Re¬member, I warned you when we were on the helicopter that we had to find a place to talk."

She remembered, but realized she had subconsciously tried to push that memory away. Now it was staring in her face. She mois¬tened her lips. "This isn't about Zelov."

"It might be. I don't know. You'll have to tell me." He gazed into her eyes. "You'll have to tell me everything, Emily. Every minute, every detail of that time with Staunton."

She flinched. She had known it was coming, but the shock was still sharp. "I don't remember every detail. Some of it is a blur."

"I'll help you."

Help her go through that hell again? "I told you about the hammer. That's all that's important."

"That's all that you remember that's important. There might be more. We'll dig it all out."

"You sound like a dentist," she said unevenly. "Only you aren't us¬ing anesthesia, are you?"

"No." His lips tightened. "And I won't stop until it's over, no mat¬ter how much you're hurting. It has to be done. I've waited too long as it is."

His expression was totally hard, totally without mercy, yet it was not without emotion. But she couldn't read what those feelings were. "Your CIA man, Ferguson, wanted to debrief me, and you stopped him."

"You were too fragile. I didn't want you to break." "Yet now you're going to do it."

"If you break, I'll find a way to put together the pieces." Dear heaven, she was afraid. "I could say no." "Yes, you could."

She closed her eyes, fighting the panic. "No, I can't. Because you're right, dammit. I can't trust myself because I didn't want to do anything but shut it out. I can remember lying there in that hut and dreading going back to Joel. I tried to build a cocoon around myself, but it didn't work." Her eyes were stinging as she opened them. "It never worked. Staunton managed to rip it open every time. Yes, I might know something I don't know I know." She drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry I'm fighting you. I promised you I'd tell you everything, didn't I? And I will. It just came as a-I didn't expect it to be tonight." She turned away. "So let's get on with the debriefing. Or should we call it the confessional? That's what Irana would probably-"

"You have nothing to confess, dammit. You're not guilty of any¬thing."

"I felt guilty. I couldn't help him. There should have been a way I could help him." She tried to keep her voice from shaking. "Shouldn't you have a tape recorder or something? Don't you have to take notes?" "No, I'll remember everything."

"Of course, you will. You're very clever." She curled up in the easy chair by the window, tucking her legs beneath the terry robe. She was cold, terribly cold. "And you'll see that I remember everything."

"Yes," he said hoarsely. "Everything."

"Stop towering over me. Sit down somewhere. Let's get this over with."

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

She looked away from him and stared blindly at the wall beyond him. She could get through this. She only had to remember that she was doing it for Joel. That living through that horror again was the only way she could help him now. Just one more time.

"Where do you want me to start?"

"When you got off the plane in Kabul."

"That far back?"

"Yes. I want to know every detail."

"I'm not arguing. I'm just surprised." But it was a relief not to have to dive into that day at the museum right away. "We didn't actually go to Afghanistan to go to the museum. We were diverted by some high-up official in the central government, Aman Nemid. He'd grown up in the area and…" She kept talking quickly, feverishly, not letting herself see the direction she was going.

Until she was there, riding in the truck with Joel. Laughing with him, being teased about Springsteen, worrying about the weather.

She suddenly froze. It was coming. Just around the bend.

"Bruce Springsteen?" Garrett asked. " 'Dancing in the Dark'?"

She wasn't really there on that road from the museum. She was here with Garrett. Keep it separate. "I like Springsteen." But she could go on now. Talk fast. Tell him about the overturned truck. Tell him about the blood running from beneath it.

Staunton standing there cradling the AK-47 in his arm. Talk.

Go numb. Don't think. Just talk.

For God's sake, don't think.

"I BIT HIS LIP AS HARD AS I could. He was bleeding." The words were feverishly tumbling out. "It felt good. I wanted to savage him. It didn't matter any longer. He couldn't hurt Joel. No one could hurt Joel any longer. He hit me, then he forced me out in the snow to go to Shafir Ali's tent. He was swearing and threatening, but it didn't matter. He couldn't hurt-"

"Stop it." Garrett was suddenly beside her, kneeling on the floor before her. "No more."

"But I haven't finished. You said I had to tell you everything. I've got to finish. He took me to Shafir and told him to-"

"You're finished. It's over." He grasped her shoulders and shook her. "Shut up. Okay?"

She gazed dazedly at him. It was the first time she had looked at him since she had started. His expression was no longer hard; it was twisted with pain, haggard… "Finished?"

"God, yes." He turned out the light. He gathered her up and car¬ried her to the bed. "Never again. You can forget it."

"No, I can't." She tried to keep from slurring. "It's there waiting for me. All you had to do was probe now and then, and it all came back…"

"Yes, that's all I had to do."

He sounded bitter. She should try to think why-No, it was too hard. She had barely been aware of him in the past hours. He had only been a voice guiding her, questioning her, making her pause when she wanted to run ahead. At first she had ha^ed that voice, but then it had become part of her. Strange…

He was laying her down on the bed, covering her with the blan¬ket. Then he was lying down beside her and drawing her into his arms. "Go to sleep. I'll stay with you. There won't be any nightmares tonight. I'll guard you. God knows, it's the least I can do."

That bitterness again. Yes, keep the nightmares away. She was too weak to do it herself tonight. "Thank you." She closed her eyes and curled closer to him. "I'm very tired…"

"You're practically shell-shocked." His words were muffled in her hair. "I know while you're hating me you won't believe this, but I'm… sorry."

"I believe you." She opened her eyes to look at him. "And I don't hate you. Why should I? It had to be done before we could move on."

"And I was the one to do it." His lips twisted. "I seem to be des¬tined to be a catalyst, don't I? First, Irana, now you."

"I couldn't blame you when all of this is about me."

"No. This is all about Staunton." He stroked her hair away from her face. "And you're telling me you didn't hate me even for a moment while we were going through that hell?"

"At first, I-but then you became part of it."

"What?"

She tried to put her thoughts together. "Part of it. Part of me. I wasn't alone any longer. We were together." She couldn't hold her eyes open any longer. "It was a terrible thing going through that horror alone. But I wasn't alone this time. It was as if you were going through it with me, standing beside me."