David Hewson - The Sacred Cut

He glanced at her. “All kinds of weird things happen from time to time, Emily. You just have to sit back, do your best, watch and learn, then put the whole damn circus behind you when it’s over.”

“Meaning?” she wondered.

“Meaning your father was a good, brave man who served his country. It’s a tragedy he’s dead. I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t enough. She wouldn’t leave it at that.

“Everyone’s sorry, Thornton, but sympathy doesn’t help. I’m trying to understand something here. You can help me.”

His fine eyebrows rose. “You’re sure of that?”

“Absolutely! You were here. You knew him. It wasn’t just a casual acquaintance. I was a kid back then. I remember you coming round. There was music. We laughed. I think…”

It was a distant memory, one so odd it stuck out.

“We used to dance.”

He laughed. “The beer used to flow in the Deacon household, Emily. Dancing was just a part of it.”

“I know. I wasn’t blind, deaf and dumb. I remember things, not the exact detail but the feeling, the atmosphere.”

He wasn’t taking the bait.

“I remember how bad that atmosphere got in 1991,” she persisted. “So bad it was what led them to divorce a few years later, I think. So what was it? I know he went away. I remember. It was my birthday. He wasn’t there. That kind of thing never happened. He always came back for my birthday. He used to say…”

The memory was so sharp, so real, it brought tears to her eyes.

“ ”When you’ve only got the one kid spoil “ em rotten.” He said it all the time. You must have heard it.“

“Must I?”

He cast an uncharacteristic look, one that just might have been fear, and returned to his desk.

“Have you asked Leapman about any of this?” he asked.

“No. What’s the point?”

“He’s your boss, isn’t he? This is business, Emily. There are rules.”

Fielding assumed she knew something. Maybe that was only to be expected.

“Thornton, I don’t think you understand. Before I came here I was a trainee geek in systems. They put me there because I was so lousy out in the field. I’m in the Bureau because it’s what I was supposed to do. Dad fixed it for me. I don’t pretend I’m good at it. Then, all of a sudden, I’m on a plane to Rome with Joel Leapman in the next seat, staring hard at his copy of The New Republic , not saying a damn word about anything. Maybe I’m here because of my Italian. Maybe because I have that degree and I know a little of the background to this pattern he keeps obsessing about.”

The pattern. That magic weave of curves and angles. She couldn’t get it out of her head.

“What pattern?” Fielding wondered.

“This.”

She picked up a pen and started sketching a sacred cut on his notepad, outlining the part that made the shape of the beast. The man, Bill Kaspar, couldn’t have done it more quickly, more fluently, she thought.

“I don’t know anything about some damn pattern,” Fielding complained, waving a hand at her. “This is your business, Emily, not mine.”

“Yes! It is my business.” Her voice rose. “But believe me. I don’t know what the hell’s going on .”

He thought about that, trying to measure if it were true or not. “Are you kidding me?”

“No!”

Fielding rubbed his hand across his mouth, thinking. “OK. Let’s say I believe you. Here’s the first piece of advice: don’t ask Leapman any of these questions. You’re right. You won’t get an answer. And it may just make things worse between you.”

“Fine,” she persisted. “So let me ask you. Again. What happened in 1991?”

An uncharacteristic sourness crossed Thornton Fielding’s face. “You’ve got books, haven’t you, Emily? You know what happened in 1991. Desert Storm. A bunch of allies got together to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait.”

“My dad was involved in that ?”

“He was the military attaché. What did you expect him to do? Stay here counting paper clips?”

So that part of her memory was accurate. He had gone away, and for some time.

“You mean he went there?”

Fielding shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know the details. It’s a million miles from my job and I don’t want to know the details. Let me just say this. Rome’s a great place for putting together certain kinds of projects. Particularly ones that have to do with the Middle East. You’ve got the communication. You’re near the action. You don’t have the security issues you hit somewhere like Greece. There are facilities, too, out of town. That’s as much as I know.”

“He was in Iraq?” she pressed.

“Maybe. Probably. Hell, I don’t know and I’m not about to start asking. There was a whole bunch of spooky people around at the time. I kept clear. I didn’t like what was going on. We had a casus belli there anyway-Saddam had invaded another country, for God’s sake. But we hadn’t thought it through. Which was kind of the opposite second time round, in my opinion. With that we’d done the war games over and over again and never quite found the reason to use them. Not in all truth. I very nearly resigned over that one.”

She was shocked. The idea of Thornton Fielding walking out of the embassy after twenty years seemed incredible.

“You thought about quitting?”

Her bafflement seemed to offend him. “Is that so odd? Do you think we just sit here taking orders, never questioning them? I wasn’t the only one. Some guy in the visa department just left his desk the day the first bombs fell, went outside and joined the crowds. Guess he’s making coffee in a bar or something right now. Stupid move. I can’t believe I nearly joined him.”

His eyes slid towards the closed door again. Suddenly she felt guilty for putting this decent man in such an awkward position.

“It’s not always easy to do what’s right, Emily. You have to marry up your conscience with your duty. Sometimes they don’t match too well. One has to make way for the other. Either that or you just start all over again at something new and I’m too old for that. Hell, I’m too good for that. You can walk away or you can wait for another day to fight. I chose the latter.”

She tried to think back to the blur that was her childhood.

“He was gone a long time, I think. I remember it was odd. My mom cried at night. She was worried.”

“He was gone for almost three months,” Fielding said bluntly. “But he came back, Emily. At least you got that. They didn’t all make it.”

“And now he’s dead. This creep killed him anyway. In a temple in Beijing. Killed him, then carved this crazy pattern out of his back, just like all these others.”

The connection hovered just out of reach… Fielding was waving a hand in front of his face. “I thought I told you. No details. Don’t give me any details…”

“Without details I’m lost, Thornton. And I can’t get a single piece of useful information out of the damn system, because it’s blocked off to underlings like me. The moment I get near anything I hit the same barrier: no security clearance. I can’t talk to Leapman. All I’ve got is you and some local cops who maybe know more than they’re letting on.”

“I haven’t got any more, Emily,” he said with resolution. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. Forget it. You want my advice? Go home. Get sick. Lay a complaint against Leapman or something. You won’t have a problem making them believe that. Get back to Washington, find yourself a comfy desk somewhere and get on with your life. Leave Rome and all this shit behind. There are graves around here you don’t want to start digging up.”

“That’s not possible.”