Eric Lustbader - Blood Trust

She heard him coming and whipped upright. As she turned around to face him, he saw that her cheeks were flaming. She was hot—dark and exotic-looking. He thought she might be Eurasian.

“Good Lord,” she said, “how long have you been there?”

“Don’t worry.” He grinned. “Your secrets are safe with me.”

At which her cheeks continued to redden, which inflamed him all the more.

“Can I help you?” he asked before she could reply.

“Damn five-inch heels.” She held out the one that had broken off.

“I think you’d better take off your boots,” he said. And then with a wry smile, “Or I could carry you down.”

“That’s all right,” she said hastily. And, unlacing the boots, she handed them to him. “Would you be a gentleman?”

The moment he took them from her, the door to the hallway opened, Gunn came silently through, armed with a handgun fitted with a noise suppressor. Maybe Willowicz saw something in Vera’s eyes, but he was too besotted with her, and his reflexes failed him. He was in the process of turning when Gunn shot him twice; once in the back, once in the head.

Vera’s fuck-me boots clattered to the raw concrete. Stepping over the corpse, she picked them up. As she brushed past Gunn, she said, “You owe me a new pair of Louboutins.”

SOMETHING, PERHAPS his reptilian brain, remained alive after the girl and his murderer had left. His heart was barely beating and he lacked any sense of where he was. Nevertheless, the organism knew it was dying. This is, in the end, what separates man from beast. The foreknowledge of death.

Blunt or Willowicz or whatever his name really was became dimly aware of his cell phone lying against his cheek. It must have dropped out of his pocket when he fell. The shot to his back had severed major nerves. His legs felt paralyzed. He could scarcely move a muscle, yet he had just enough life left in him to move one finger. Trembling, it struck the side of the phone. As if on its own, it moved a fraction to the left and hit the autodial key.

The call went through and O’Banion’s voice echoed in the staircase.

“Willowicz? Hello? Willowicz?”

Blunt’s lips moved, forming pink bubbles that looked like membranes. Three times he tried to speak and failed. Then, at last, as the light began to fade, as even he lost his desperate hold on life, he managed two agonized words.

“He’s coming.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“WHAT ARE you doing with this phone, Jack?”

“Calling you, apparently. I assume the other number on it will connect me with Dyadya Gourdjiev.”

Annika sighed in his ear. “It would have, yes. Unfortunately, my grandfather is in the hospital.”

“Don’t worry,” Jack said, “the old boy’s too tough to die.”

There was a small silence, during which Jack saw Alli watching him like a hawk. He tried to smile, but it came out a grimace, which only amped her obvious anxiety.

As if divining the direction of his thoughts, Annika said, “How is Alli?”

“I think you know as well as I do.”

“I miss her.”

“I doubt that.”

“Now you’re being peevish. I’ve never made a secret how I feel about her.”

“Annika, you’re keeping one secret after another.”

Her laugh sounded forced, a small explosion of mixed emotions. “It’s true.”

Jack felt tongue-tied. He had been certain he’d never see or speak to Annika again, and here he was on the phone with her.

“Don’t come after me, you wrote me,” he said, “don’t try to find me.”

“And now I’ve found you. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Jack?”

He wasn’t able to reply.

“Did Emma warn you I would come back into your life?”

Jack’s heart turned over. He recalled his conversation with Emma, her telling him that she wasn’t a seer. And yet, she had spoken of his continuing connection with Annika.

“Something like that.”

“She’s a smart girl.”

He was gripped by a sudden selfish impulse to sever the connection, but instead squeezed his eyes shut.

“What do you want, Annika?”

“What I’ve always wanted, Jack. To win.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, but you do. I need you, Jack. I need you and Alli.”

His eyes snapped open and he looked at Alli, who was standing not twenty feet away. She was staring at him, her head cocked to one side. At that moment, she looked so small, infinitely fragile. Damaged. Just like Annika was damaged. And for the first time, the thought hit him: Was Alli on her way to becoming another Annika? God forgive him, if that were true.

“Jack, I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating now. We’re all soldiers in the night, and because of this, like it or not, we’re pawns. No matter how strong we are, no matter how powerful our mentors and friends, there are always forces that wield more power. The more powerful they are, the deeper their cover. So on the surface this shadow war we wage seems impossible to win. We’ll always be defeated by those deeply hidden forces, no? But you and I know there is a path to beating them, because we know that the deeper these forces are buried the more secrets they hold. We only need one of those secrets to defeat them, yes?”

Jack, still staring at Alli, said, “That’s right, Annika.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said at length.

“What question?”

“How did you get this phone?”

“You mean Henry Holt Carson’s phone?”

Silence.

“What do you and Carson have going?” Jack said.

“It seems we both have questions that need answers.”

“Yes, we do.”

“So, then, we are agreed,” Annika said. “It’s time we met.”

“HOW CAN you rely on a…”

“On a woman?” the Syrian said to Arian Xhafa.

“And look at how she’s dressed!”

The Syrian chuckled. “Indecent, isn’t it?”

They were sitting in the garden at the rear of the walled compound. It was large, planted with citrus and fig trees that were burlaped in the winter in order to protect them from frost. There was also an enormous oak whose sturdy branches spread cooling shade. Benches were strewn around at strategic locations to capture the sunlight and shade, depending on the season. The two men sat on one, a bowl of fresh fruit between them. The rain had ceased and one of the guards had dutifully wiped down the bench, making it ready for them. Other guards armed with AK-47s were stationed at each corner, backs against the concrete walls, but they were too far away to overhear the conversation, which was, in any event, conducted in hushed tones.

“You are a good Muslim, I myself have seen examples of this more than once,” Xhafa said. “And yet you allow a woman—a Western infidel at that!—such license and power. It is, frankly, a mystery I cannot comprehend.”

Overhead, the low clouds were being stripped away by a westerly wind, revealing tatters of pearlescent blue sky.

“Caroline is a closely held secret, that much is true.” The Syrian picked out a fig, popped it into his mouth, and chewed reflectively. “Listen to me, Xhafa, because I will only say this once. At first blush, it may sound like heresy, so if you repeat it to anyone I’ll deny it.” He paused, allowing the small silence to indicate the other consequence for Xhafa. “There is a fundamental flaw in Islam and it is this: Unlike the other major religions of the world, Islam can find no place for itself in the modern world. It is hidebound, Xhafa, bent on turning back a clock that cannot be tampered with. No matter how many infidels we kill, no matter how many terrorist attacks we launch, we cannot return the world to the way it was centuries ago. We cannot destroy modern culture any more than we can destroy time. To continue to do so is to become Don Quixote, tilting at Western windmills. Defeat and madness are the only possible results.”