David Baldacci - The Whole Truth

“A little.”

“Bad flight from Holland?”

“Ride was great. Just an old rugby injury.” Actually it was the free fall into the canal cesspool, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Boys and their games,” she said in a mock scolding tone. “Is that how you got that?” She pointed to the bruise on his face courtesy of the Iranian who would never see freedom again.

“Luggage came out of the plane bin faster than I thought it would. Looks worse than it is.”

When they finally let go of each other, Anna stared up at him, but at five-eleven and wearing two-inch pumps she didn’t have to crane her neck too much. Still, Shaw had never been more grateful for his imposing height.

“How was the speech?” he asked.

“It was fairly well attended. However, in the interests of full disclosure I have to add that the heightened numbers were probably due largely to the catered food from the best Indian restaurant in town, and the open bar. I’m disappointed you missed it. I could have at least imagined you in your skivvies.”

“Why imagine when you can see it for real?”

She kissed him and intertwined her long fingers through his thick ones.

He held out her book he’d purchased.

“You paid for it? I could’ve given you one for free. They sent me all the unsold copies. They were so numerous I used them as furniture in my office.”

“Well, this one you’re getting the full royalty on. Will you sign it for me?”

She took out her pen and wrote something in the book. When he tried to see what, she said, “Read it later. After Dublin.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re interested in police states?” she asked.

“As much as I get around I’m usually in one at least once a month.”

He’d literally run into her on a Berlin side street three years ago. She was in the process of being mugged by two men and he’d just finished a solo mission not unlike the one in Amsterdam and was not in a particularly good mood. When the thugs saw him they made a big mistake by thinking they’d rob two birds at the same time. The police showed up a few minutes after Shaw called them when he’d finished beating both men unconscious. He’d hit one of them so hard he had nearly broken his hand on the man’s skull.

He’d walked Anna back to her hotel after she refused to go to a hospital. He held ice against her face for an hour and then slept on the floor of her hotel room because she was still so unnerved by the attack.

Shaw had never had a serious relationship with a woman before. That might have stemmed from his relationship with his mother, or rather his lack of one.

Abandonment did that to you.

Yet from the moment he saw Anna Fischer, bruised and bloodied though she was, on that dimly lit avenue in the German capital, Shaw knew that his heart was no longer his alone.

Nearly three years had now passed and her feelings had clearly deepened toward him. He knew that Anna loved him. Yet he could sense her growing bewilderment at his lack of commitment.

Well, that was about to end. Shaw was not yet free from Frank but he could wait no longer. He would make this work. Somehow.

“You’re pensive,” she said over dinner. At age thirty-eight she still wore her hair long. It curved seductively around her sculpted Germanic bones.

“No, just hungry. With men they carry the same expression. I suppose they don’t serve coddle here.” It was a working-class meal of rashers, potatoes, onion, and sausages with pepper poured thick.

“Not here, no, but we can go elsewhere.”

“That’s okay. Food’s gotten better in Dublin over the years.”

“Yes, though I still can’t understand why Irish stew has no carrots.” She smiled impishly over her wineglass. “Even the British have carrots in their stew.”

“And that’s exactly why the Irish don’t.”

Later, as they were finishing their meals she said, “So what were you doing in Amsterdam this time?”

“As little as possible.”

“Your consultancy work slowing down?”

“Come on. I have a place I want to take you to.”

Shaw could feel the strain in his voice and sensed that Anna could too.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You’re acting very mysteriously.”

Shaw tongued his dry lips and attempted to smile. “I thought that was one of the things you liked about me. Mystery?”

He didn’t believe his own words and it was clear she didn’t either.

He rose. His legs quivered a bit and he silently cursed himself.

I jumped into a damn canal from four stories up and beat a gang of nuclear terrorist nutcases almost single-handedly. You’d think I could manage this without acting like a lovesick teenager.

A little later they entered a small pub north of the Liffey, which was the decidedly poorer and less glamorous half of Dublin. Yet Shaw liked it here, as did Anna.

As she’d once said, “How can you possibly not love every molecule of a city that produced Swift, Stoker, G. B. Shaw, Yeats, Wilde, Beckett, and Heaney? And the master, Joyce.”

Just to see her reaction he’d answered, “I’m more into Roddy Doyle.”

“And I’m more into Maeve Binchy,” she’d shot back.

He ordered for them, which was unusual. When it arrived she said, “What is it?”

“Barm brack. It’s sort of a fruitcake.”

“Fruitcake! Don’t they use those for doorstops and to poison people?”

Shaw cut her a slice. “Just try it. You’re an adventurous gal.”

Anna stabbed the cake with her fork and it clinked against something. Her wide eyes grew even wider as she probed the barm until her fingers closed around it.

Shaw said, “Legend has it that if you find the ring in the barm brack, you’re destined to be married.”

There was no turning back now, he knew. The next few moments would decide his entire life, and the sweat burned through his shirt. He drew a deep breath, slipped from his chair, and rested one knee on the old plank floor that was worn smooth from centuries of drunks and at least one man proposing. Taking her shaky hand in his firm one, he slipped the ring on her finger and said, “Anna, will you marry me?”

THE DRUM-DRUM OF THE RAIN woke him. As he tried to get back to sleep the vibration next to his head elicited a small groan from him.

Shaw snatched up the device and read the message he’d just been sent.

Frank.

In the bed next to him was Anna. They’d properly consummated their engagement and then drank a bottle of Dom, glasses balanced precariously on flat bellies.

She slept soundly as Shaw rose, walked into the adjoining room, and punched in a number, knowing it would be answered immediately.

“Your gig over in old Dublin?” Frank said cheerfully. Shaw could imagine the man lounging in a chair somewhere, probably several time zones away, wearing the smug, shit-eating grin that masters reserved for conversations with their servants.

“What, your men not checking in with you regularly? Not that you need them to.” Shaw stared at his right side when he said this, where the old scar was. “And by the way, it’s 3 a.m. here. The thought ever run through that thick head of yours?”

“We’re a 24/7 op, Shaw. You know the rules.”

“ Your rules.”

He yanked open the drapes and stared out at a dismal curtain of rain drenching the area.

“We need you, Shaw.”

“No you don’t. And even people like me need some damn R amp;R.”

“I can tell from your grumpy tone that you’re not alone.”

Shaw of course knew that Frank knew exactly where he was and who was with him. Yet the other man’s tone made him look away from the window and then race back to the bedroom to check on Anna. She was still sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware that he was currently haggling with a professional psycho.