Tom Savage - Mrs. John Doe

Nora smiled, pleased by the remark. This Israeli agent didn’t seem to be the type to dispense compliments lightly, so it clearly meant something. He also didn’t seem to mind letting her lead this operation, civilian that she was, and that was an even bigger compliment. But there was no time to bask in her glory, not now. She rose and helped Josef to get Jeff on his feet. “There’s a dirt road over that way, through the trees. The car is there, an old Ford Focus. Can you hot-wire an engine?”

She was speaking to Josef, but it was Jeff who answered her. “We both can, Pal. Just get us to it, and we’ll start it.” She noticed the pride in his voice and the gleam in his eye, despite his injuries and what must be a raging fever, judging from the heat of his skin. She thought, This hero is my husband.

They moved through the forest, brushing away the rain that dripped down from the dense carpet of leaves above them. The lightning and thunder continued, and the sky she could see through the branches was nearly black. It’s just going on two in the afternoon, she thought, but it might as well be twilight. Jeff stumbled once, but her hand was there to steady him and guide him along. The dirt road appeared before them, a sudden clear space among the trunks and tangled undergrowth. They hurried down the road, skidding in the mud with every step, deeper into the woods and around a bend. And there was the Focus parked at the side, exactly as she’d last seen it.

Nora was about to rush toward the car when Josef’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“Wait,” he said. He took his pistol from her hand, indicating that she should replace him on Jeff’s right side. As Nora grasped her husband’s right arm, the young man moved slowly forward, closing the twenty feet between them and the car, scanning the trees at both sides of the road for any signs of movement. Nora squinted through the downpour, watching as he cautiously approached the vehicle.

Josef shifted the pistol to his left hand and bent down to pick up a big rock from the side of the road near the rear right tire. He straightened up and raised the rock, preparing to smash the driver’s side window. As Nora and her husband watched, the rock suddenly fell from his hand, and he was flying forward to collide with the side of the car. He bounced off the door and toppled over backward, landing flat on his back in the muddy tract. The pistol had fallen from his other hand. His head fell to the side, facing them, and Nora saw that his dark eyes were wide open, watching her. As she stared, he slowly, deliberately winked at her. Then he shut his eyes and lay still.

She hadn’t heard a sound through the falling rain, but she immediately knew what had happened. Josef had been shot with a round from a silenced weapon. She couldn’t see him very well, so she didn’t know the nature of his injury, but he was alive and alert. The shock of seeing the young man fall down was momentary; when she saw him wink, something else took over inside her. Without even thinking, she reached over and removed the snub-nosed revolver from Jeff’s hand. She continued to grasp his arm with her left hand, but she turned toward him and raised her right hand across her stomach, concealing the gun between their bodies.

“What are you doing?” Jeff whispered.

“My job,” she murmured. “Trust me.” She didn’t look at him; her face was turned toward the car, her gaze riveted to the edge of the forest directly behind where Josef had fallen. After a moment, Craig Elder stepped out from the trees. He kicked Josef’s pistol away to the side of the road, then he walked slowly toward them. In his right hand he held Jacques Lanier’s silver SIG Sauer, the weapon she had given him, and it was aimed directly at her husband.

“Hello again, Nora,” Craig said, and he grinned.

She was onstage. This muddy road in the forest was her platform, and these three men were her costars. One was down, shot and presumed dead, and one was beside her, injured and ill and barely able to stand. The third, the villain of the piece, was walking toward her, smiling, closing the gap between them. Ten feet. Eight feet. Seven. Nora stood very still, clutching her husband’s arm and her most important prop-the loaded revolver that looked so much like her own empty one-waiting for her cue.

Craig Elder came to a stop five feet in front of them, the weapon still aimed at Jeff’s chest. That maddening little smile was still there, on his lips. In his eyes.

And in his voice. “Did you really think you could outwit me, Nora? After all we’ve been through? You insult me. I knew where you’d go from the moment we found that you weren’t in your room anymore. I knew you’d bring your husband here, and thanks to you, I was even expecting him .” He jerked his left thumb over his shoulder, indicating Josef, who lay sprawled in the mud behind him, pelted by the steady rain.

Nora kept her gaze locked with Craig’s, but she used her peripheral vision. She strained to be aware of any movement in the space just beside Craig’s left arm, the blurry form of the man lying in the road. He was an actor, Jeff had said, and she assumed he’d meant it literally. Now he was pretending to be dead, and she knew that her cue, when it came, would be from him. Until then, she had one motivation in this scene: to keep Craig’s attention, to prevent him from turning around.

“You’re out of time,” Craig said, “and I’m out of patience. Whatever he gave you isn’t in the envelope. Tell me what you did with it.”

Nora contemplated spitting in his face, then thought better of it; that only worked in Victorian melodramas or Joan Crawford movies. She drew in a breath and said, “Or what? You’ll shoot us? You’re going to do that anyway, so why should I tell you where it is?”

The little smile on his handsome face vanished. He lowered the SIG Sauer until it was aimed directly at Jeff’s uninjured left knee. “Because I’m the one with the gun. I can do this quickly, or I can do it very, very slowly. And please don’t bother attempting to scare me with that useless revolver you’re trying to conceal. Remember, I’m the one who emptied the chamber.”

Nora pulled the gun out from between her body and Jeff’s, and turned around to face Craig. She dropped her right hand carelessly to her side, her finger never leaving the trigger.

“Oh well, it was worth a try,” she said with a shrug.

Behind Craig, the figure in the road stirred. Josef slowly sat up and rose to his knees. It was obvious, even from this distance, that he was in great pain, but it didn’t deter him. He reached down with his right hand and pulled something from the pocket of his jeans. As if sensing the movement behind him, Craig started to turn his head.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Nora said quickly, regaining his attention. He looked at her expectantly.

“No, Nora!” Jeff said. “Don’t tell him where it is!” He too had seen the activity behind Craig, and he was playing along. Good.

She shrugged again. “Darling, he already has it-he just doesn’t know it.”

“Hush!” her husband cried. “If you tell him, he’ll succeed, and we can’t let him do that!” He was overdoing his part, but then again, he wasn’t a professional actor.

Now Craig was watching them, fascinated. “I already have it? What the hell does that mean?” Behind him, Josef raised his right arm. Through the rain, Nora saw the glint from the object in his hand, and she remembered the moment in Russell Square Gardens when she had first seen it.

Nora smiled at Craig, timing her next line perfectly to synchronize with the action behind him. “It means, Craig Elder the younger”-Josef’s arm snapped down-“you can go to hell!”