Tess Gerritsen - Double Impact

His grin vanished. “I don’t care for your tone of voice, young lady.”

“You don’t care about anything, do you? Except flying your stupid planes in your stupid war.” Before he could answer, she’d pushed past him and left the room.

As she fled down the hall she heard him yell, “You’re just a kid. One of these days you’ll understand! Grow up a little! Then you’ll understand…”

One of these days. One of these days.

“I still don’t understand,” she whispered to the night.

From the street below came the whine of a passing car. She sat up in bed and, running a hand through her damp hair, gazed around the room. The curtains fluttered like gossamer in the moonlit window. In the next bed, Guy lay asleep, the covers kicked aside, his bare back gleaming in the darkness.

She rose and went to the window. On the corner below, three pedicab drivers, dressed in rags, squatted together in the dim glow of a street lamp. They didn’t say a word; they simply huddled there in a midnight tableau of weariness. She wondered how many others, just as weary, just as silent, wandered in the night.

And to think they won the war.

A groan and the creak of bedsprings made her turn. Guy was lying on his back now, the covers kicked to the floor. By some strange fascination, she was drawn to his side. She stood in the shadows, studying his rumpled hair, the rise and fall of his chest. Even in his sleep he wore a half smile, as though some private joke were echoing in his dreams. She started to smooth back his hair, then thought better of it. Her hand lingered over him as she struggled against the longing to touch him, to be held by him. It had been so long since she’d felt this way about a man, and it frightened her; it was the first sign of surrender, of the offering up of her soul.

She couldn’t let it happen. Not with this man.

She turned and went back to her own bed and threw herself onto the sheets. There she lay, thinking of all the ways he was wrong for her, all the ways they were wrong for each other.

The way her mother and father had been wrong for each other.

It was something Ann Maitland had never recognized, that basic incompatibility. It had been painfully obvious to her daughter. Bill Maitland was the wild card, the unpredictable joker in life’s game of chance. Ann cheerfully accepted whatever surprises she was dealt because he was her husband, because she loved him.

But Willy didn’t need that kind of love. She didn’t need a younger version of Wild Bill Maitland.

Though, God knew, she wanted him. And he was right in the next bed.

She closed her eyes. Restless, sweating, she counted the hours until morning.

“A MOST CURIOUS TURN of events.” Minister Tranh, recently off the plane from Saigon, settled into his hard-backed chair and gazed at the tea leaves drifting in his cup. “You say they are behaving like mere tourists?”

“Typical capitalist tourists,” said Miss Hu in disgust. She opened her notebook, in which she’d dutifully recorded every detail, and began her report. “This morning at nine-forty-five, they visited the tomb of our beloved leader but offered no comment. At 12:17, they were served lunch at the hotel, a menu which included fried fish, stewed river turtle, steamed vegetables and custard. This afternoon, they were escorted to the Museum of War, then the Museum of Revolution-”

“This is hardly the itinerary of capitalist tourists.”

“And then-” she flipped the page “-they went shopping.” Triumphantly, she snapped the notebook closed.

“But Comrade Hu, even the most dedicated Party member must, on occasion, shop.”

“For antiques?”

“Ah. They value tradition.”

Miss Hu bent forward. “Here is the part that raises my suspicions, Minister Tranh. It is the leopard revealing its stripes.”

“Spots,” corrected the minister with a smile. The fervent Comrade Hu had been studying her American idioms again. What a shame she had absorbed so little of their humor. “What, exactly, did they do?”

“This afternoon, after the antique shop, they spent two hours at the Australian embassy-the cocktail lounge, to be precise-where they conversed in private with various suspect foreigners.”

Minister Tranh found it of only passing interest that the Americans would retreat to a Western embassy. Like anyone in a strange country, they probably missed the company of their own type of people. Decades ago in Paris, Tranh had felt just such a longing. Even as he’d sipped coffee in the West Bank cafés, even as he’d reveled in the joys of Bohemian life, at times, he had ached for the sight of jet black hair, for the gentle twang of his own language. Still, how he had loved Paris…

“So you see, the Americans are well monitored,” said Miss Hu. “Rest assured, Minister Tranh. Nothing will go wrong.”

“Assuming they continue to cooperate with us.”

“Cooperate?” Miss Hu’s chin came up in a gesture of injured pride. “They are not aware we’re following them.”

What a shame the politically correct Miss Hu was so lacking in vision and insight. Minister Tranh hadn’t the energy to contradict her. Long ago, he had learned that zealots were seldom swayed by reason.

He looked down at his tea leaves and sighed. “But, of course, you are right, Comrade,” he said.

“IT’S BEEN A DAY NOW. Why hasn’t anyone contacted us?” Willy whispered across the oilcloth-covered table.

“Maybe they can’t get close enough,” Guy said. “Or maybe they’re still looking us over.”

The way everyone else was looking them over, Willy thought as her gaze swept the noisy café. In one glance she took in the tables cluttered with coffee cups and soup bowls, the diners veiled in a vapor of cooking grease and cigarette smoke, the waiters ferrying trays of steaming food. They’re all watching us, she thought. In a far corner, the two police agents sat flicking ashes into a saucer. And through the dirty street windows, small faces peered in, children straining for a rare glimpse of Americans.

Their waiter, gaunt and silent, set two bowls of noodle soup on their table and vanished through a pair of swinging doors. In the kitchen, pots clanged and voices chattered over a cleaver’s staccato. The swinging doors kept slapping open and shut as waiters pushed through, bent under the weight of their trays.

The police agents were staring.

Willy, by now brittle with tension, reached for her chopsticks and automatically began to eat. It was modest fare, noodles and peppery broth and paper-thin slices of what looked like beef. Water buffalo, Guy told her. Tasty but tough. Head bent, ignoring the stares, she ate in silence. Only when she inadvertently bit into a chili pepper and had to make a lunge for her glass of lemonade did she finally put her chopsticks down.

“I don’t know if I can take this idle-tourist act much longer.” She sighed. “Just how long are we supposed to wait?”

“As long as it takes. That’s one thing you learn in this country. Patience. Waiting for the right time. The right situation.”

“Twenty years is a long time to wait.”

“You know,” he said, frowning, “that’s the part that bothers me. That it’s been twenty years. Why would the Company still be mucking around in what should be a dead issue?”

“Maybe they’re not interested. Maybe Toby Wolff’s wrong.”

“Toby’s never wrong.” He looked around at the crowded room, his gaze troubled. “And something else still bothers me. Has from the very beginning. Our so-called accidental meeting in Bangkok. Both of us looking for the same answers, the same man.” He paused. “In addition to mild paranoia, however, I get also this sense of…”

“Coincidence?”