James Patterson - Swimsuit

“So the Alliance is German.”

“One of the members is German. Horst Werner. That name is probably an alias. I never checked. Another of the Peepers, Jan Van der Heuvel, is Dutch.

“Listen, that could be an alias, too. It goes without saying, you'll change all the names for the book, right, Ben? But these people are not so stupid as to leave their own breadcrumbs.”

“Of course. I understand.”

He nodded, then went on. His agitation was gone, but his voice was harder now. I couldn't find a crack in it.

“There are several others in the Alliance. I don't know who they are. They live in cyberspace. Well, one I know very well. Gina Prazzi. She recruited me.”

“That sounds interesting. You were recruited? Tell me about Gina.”

Henri sipped at his wine, then began to tell me about meeting a beautiful woman after his four years in the Iraqi prison.

“I was having lunch in a sidewalk bistro in Paris when I noticed this tall, slender, extraordinary woman at a nearby table.

“She had very white skin, and her sunglasses were pushed up into her thick brown hair. She had high breasts and long legs and three diamond watches on one wrist. She looked rich and refined and impossibly inaccessible, and I wanted her.

“She put money down for the check and stood up to leave. I wanted to talk to her, and all I could think to say was, 'Do you have the time?'

“She gave me a long, slow look, from my eyes down to my shoes and back up again. My clothes were cheap. I had been out of prison for only a few weeks. The cuts and bruises had healed, but I was still gaunt. The torture, the things I'd seen, the afterimages, were still in my eyes. But she recognized something in me.

“This woman, this angel whose name I did not yet know, said, 'I have Paris time, New York time, Shanghai time? and I also have time for you. ' ”

Henri's voice was softened now as he talked about Gina Prazzi. It was as if he'd finally tasted fulfillment after a lifetime of deprivation.

He said that they'd spent a week in Paris. Henri still visited every September. He described walking with her through the Place Vendôme, shopping with her there. He said that Gina paid for everything, bought him expensive gifts and clothing.

“She came from very old money,” Henri told me. “She had connections to a world of wealth I knew nothing about.”

After their week in Paris, Henri told me, they cruised the Mediterranean on Gina's yacht. He called up images of the Côte d'Azur, one of the most beautiful spots in the world, he said.

He recalled the lovemaking in her cabin, the swell of the waves, the wine, the exquisite meals in restaurants with high views of the Mediterranean.

“I had nineteen fifty-eight Glen Garioch whisky at twenty-six hundred dollars a bottle. And here's a meal I'll never forget: sea urchin ravioli, followed by rabbit with fennel, mascarpone, and lemon. Nice fare for a country boy and ex-Al Qaeda POW.”

“I'm a steak and potatoes man myself.”

Henri laughed, said, “You just haven't had a real gastronomic tour of the Med. I could teach you. I could take you to a pastry shop in Paris, Au Chocolat. You would never be the same, Ben.

“But I was talking about Gina, a woman with refined appetites. One day a new guy appeared at our table. The Dutchman – Jan Van der Heuvel.”

Henri's face tightened as he talked about Van der Heuvel, how he had joined them in their hotel room, called out stage directions from his chair in the corner as Henri made love to Gina.

“I didn't like this guy or this routine, but a couple of months before I'd been sleeping in my own shit, eating bugs. So what wouldn't I do to be with Gina, Jan Van der Heuvel or not?”

Henri's voice was drowned out by the roar of a helicopter flying over the valley. He warned me with his eyes not to move from my chair.

Even after the silence of the desert returned, it was several moments before he continued his story about Gina.

I didn't love Gina,” Henri said to me, “but I was fascinated by her, obsessed with her. Okay. Maybe I did love her in some way,” Henri said, admitting to having a human vulnerability for the first time.

“One day in Rome, Gina picked up a young girl -”

“And the Dutchman? He was out of the picture?”

“Not entirely. He'd gone back to Amsterdam, but he and Gina had some strange connection. They were always on the phone. She'd be whispering and laughing when she spoke with him. You can imagine, right? The guy liked to watch. But in the flesh, she was with me.”

“You were with Gina in Rome.” I prompted him to continue with the main narrative.

“Yes, of course. Gina picked up a student who was screwing her way through college, as they say. A first-semester prostitute from Prague, at Universitr degli Studi di Roma. I don't remember her name, only that she was hot and too trusting.

“We were in bed, the three of us, and Gina told me to close my hands around the girl's neck. It's a sex game called 'breath play.' It enhances the orgasm, and yes, Ben, before you ask, it was exciting to revisit my singular experience with Molly. This girl passed out, and I loosened my grip so that she could breathe.

“Gina reached out, took my cock in her hand, and kissed me. And then she said, 'Finish her, Henri.'

“I started to mount the girl, but Gina said, 'No, Henri, you don't understand. Finish her.'

“She reached over to the bedside table, held up the keys to her Ferrari, swung the keys in front of my eyes. It was an offer, the car for the girl's life.

“I killed that girl. And I made love to Gina with the dead girl beside us. Gina was electrified and wild under my hands. When she came, it was like a death and a rebirth as a softer, sweeter woman.”

Henri's body language relaxed. He told me about driving the Ferrari, a leisurely three-day ride to Florence with many stops along the way, and about a life he believed was becoming his.

“Not long after that trip to Florence, Gina told me about the Alliance, including the fact that Jan was an important member.”

The travelogue of Western Europe had ended. Henri's posture straightened, and the tempo of his voice changed from languid to clipped.

“Gina told me that the Alliance was a secret organization composed of the very best people, by which she meant wealthy, filthy rich. She said that they could use me, 'make use of my talents' is the way she put it. And she said that I would be rewarded handsomely.

“So Gina didn't love me. She had a purpose for me. Of course, I was a little hurt by that. At first, I thought I might kill her. But there was no need for that, was there, Ben? In fact it would have been stupid.”

“Because they hired you to kill for them?”

“Of course,” Henri said.

“But how would that benefit the Alliance?”

“Benjamin,” Henri said patiently. “They didn't hire me to do hits. I film my work. I make the films for them. They pay to watch.”

Henri had said he killed for money, and now his story was coming together. He had been killing and creating films of these sexual executions for a select audience at a premium price. The stagelike setting for Kim's death made sense now. It had been a cinematic backdrop to his debauchery. But I didn't understand why Henri had drowned Levon and Barbara. What could possibly explain that?

“You were talking about the Peepers. The assignment you took in Hawaii.”

“I remember. Well, understand, the Peepers give me a great deal of creative freedom,” Henri said. “I picked Kim out from her photos. I used a ploy to get information from her agency. I said I wanted to book her and asked when would she be returning from – where was she shooting?