The patio door opened to his touch enabling him to escape the fine, warm drizzle and enter the sanctuary of the dry and cool interior. She sensed the arrival of a presence, turning her head slightly to the side and then lifting her hands from the basin to dry her hands on the adjacent towel. He’d hoped for some kind of welcoming acknowledgement but was instead met by unexpectedly cold, dispassionate eyes.
“It is common practice for visitors to knock at the door when they wish to see me,” she said. “That is what everyone else does.”
“The back door seemed like a better idea, in case you were being watched.”
Her nod agreed with the statement though the expression of detachment remained unerringly intact and he started to regret the decision to pay her a visit. The subsequent silence felt uncomfortable, nothing like the way he’d imagined. Not that in truth he knew what to properly expect except the voice in his head told him he had to come and so he came, for better or for worse.
“I was expecting you,” she said.
“You were?”
“It is in your nature; to do what you believe is the ‘decent’ thing to do.”
“Which is?”
“To make sure we are alright. Am I wrong?”
He shook his head.
“I see you have brought a rucksack. Were you expecting to stay here as well?”
“No,” he said. “It’s a present.”
He unbuckled the straps and tipped the sack upside down on the coffee table. Thick bundles of notes, Euros of a variety of denominations, swamped the surface and then spilled on to the tiled floor.
“Courtesy of John’s team,” he said. “They wanted you to have some.”
Her left eyebrow raised sharply in response to the masses of wealth he’d deposited in front of her though she exhibited no outward sign of pleasure.
“The English media are hailing John as a national hero, a hero who tragically lost his life while attempting to uncover the presence of a terrorist cell living in North America. They say the authorities there are now acting on the information he collected and that details will soon be made available to the public at large.”
“Sounds about right,” he said.
“John is to be posthumously decorated.”
“Good,” he replied, trying to sound convincing. “This will come in handy for a new frock for the ceremony.”
At last she managed some kind of smile, one he returned with a similarly strained one of his own. She stepped towards the centre island placing her hands, palm down, against the cool marble surface.
“It appears those behind the Milieu conspiracy have found a way to evade justice,” she said.
“In a fashion,” he said. “What do you think the odds are for three of them to happen to be on the same charter plane that crashes into a desert?”
“You mean four?”
“No, Bruckmuller and the two Jessop brothers, Charlie and Judd?” he queried.
“A fourth body has been discovered, a man by the name of Kimber, James Kimber.”
“I thought …”
The blink of her eyes cut him short.
“What did you think?”
“That there were only three. I need to pay more attention to news bulletins,” he said dismissively.
Despite her disbelieving frown he decided against further elaboration. Though Kimber’s inclusion on the doomed flight had come as something of a surprise it served little purpose to burden her with the background. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel a little troubled by the news.
“So it looks like John’s mission is about as complete as it’s ever going to get,” he said
She blinked without sentiment, a forced half smile adding to his unease about her demeanour. Common sense dictated now was the time to leave. He’d made the obligatory visit to check on her wellbeing and deposited enough funds to relieve any lingering financial concerns she might have. Yet the issue of her withholding Gratia’s attempts at contact with him hung in his mind.
“Where are the children?”
“With my mother,” she said.
“I thought …”
Her impassive stare dried the moisture in his throat leaving the remainder of the sentence hanging in the air, unspoken and incomplete.
“You are much in demand,” she said.
He grinned.
“Not an everyday occurrence.”
The weak attempt to smile came and went in the blink of an eye.
“A woman telephoned in search of you, a woman by the name of Catherine …”
“Vogel,” said Matt.
“Yes. It appears she needs to talk to you urgently.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth, that I had not seen you.”
“Good. I’m in no hurry for that conversation.”
“Marius is looking for you also,” she said.
“Looking for me? I’d have thought he’d want to keep a very low profile, negotiate safe passage to an obscure rogue state to keep out of harm’s way.”
The remark was met by a peculiarly confident smile.
“Marius will not run.”
“He’d rather hang around until the ‘car accident’ catches up with him. I think not.”
“There is no reason for him to hide.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet that’s what the Jessop boys, Bruckmuller and Kimber thought too.”
The confident smile broadened its scope, which he found to be eerily disconcerting.
“If I were you I’d put some distance between you and old Marius, to be on the safe side.”
“No need,” she said. “Marius has been in the employ of the US state for over thirty years now.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“He will look after me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
“Marius works at a department within the Executive Office of the President, called the National Security and International Affairs Division of the OSTP. He heads up the division.”
“OSTP, what’s that?”
“The Office of Science and Technology Policy; Marius has the unique privilege of reporting directly to the US President, bypassing his own Director.”
Instinct told him something was wrong, that it was time to leave after all. He made to move.
“When Marius requests an audience it is courtesy to accept the invitation.”
“Well he’s going to be disappointed.”
She eased her left hand from the surface of the worktop and slid open a drawer. Initially the object she revealed with her right hand didn’t register. Then he recognised the handgun her late husband trained her to use.
“Fold your arms in front of your chest so I can see them,” she said coldly.
The unemotional tone of her voice troubled him more than the sincerity, and he spent the next passing seconds returning a blank and empty stare. The release of the safety catch acted as a reminder of his precarious situation. He carefully avoided making any sudden move as her index finger curled round the trigger.
“I respond better to being asked politely,” he said, anxious to lighten the mood.
Not so very long ago he would have mentally prepared for danger before entering any property, except on this occasion it hadn’t crossed his mind. Not once. He’d allowed himself to get too comfortable in these surrounds, lost his edge. It felt odd to have his life threatened by Maria after she’d invested so much of her time to keep him alive. He’d never seriously considered her capable of murder, given she had breathed new life into four children, and he remained unsure. Nevertheless he could do little more than obey, for the time being.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said.
“Why is your old mentor in such a desperate hurry to see me all of a sudden?”
“It is not sudden. And neither is he my old mentor.”
“You’re going to have to explain that to me.”
“I have worked for Marius for years, still do.?
??
“I thought you said John wanted you to stay at home, with the children?”
“Tillman’s wife is Maria Cuellar, a Spaniard. She is fat and over forty and living in Barcelona. I am Portuguese and my family name has always been Costa.”
Rooted to the spot his mind spun with confusion.
“Your name came up on the computer as ...”
“Carefully placed,” she said.
“But ... the children ...”
“The twins are mine, consequence of an ill advised affair with a married man. The boys are their elder cousins.”
He thought back. Neither of the boys called her mother he remembered. It just hadn’t registered.
“Tessa nearly died ...”
“An unfortunate accident,” she said, temporarily losing the control in her eyes. “That wasn’t meant to happen.”
Thought processes galloped in his head as he tried to shake the cobwebs from his mind.
“You knew it was me. You knew who I was the moment I set foot through your door.”
“It was I who discovered you, or rather the DNA sample of subject number 60200106678. I happened to come across it during testing and reported it straight to Marius. As a reward he invited me to participate in the study.”
“What study?”
“You were meant to be alone when Marius arrived to inject you with the virus. And we certainly didn’t intend you to use the antidote on your friend. It presented us with an unwanted complication. By the time the recovery team had reached the location you had left, Rosa Cain along with you. Had you died we would have been unable to continue with the research on our theory. Fortunately you came here, which helped.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The beginnings of a superior smile began to manifest on her lips, filling him with dread.
“Marius left it up to me to judge the right time to draw the additional samples.”
“What samples? I don’t recall you taking anything other than blood from my veins.”
“It wasn’t your blood we needed. As we had forecast your motility began to exhibit signs of recovery. A few more days and we might have had the conclusive evidence we needed. But then you left, before we had finished.”
The thought sickened, knotting the muscles in his stomach. He blinked repeatedly in an attempt to shut out the deception from his mind and then clenched his fists to try and restore some kind of mental equilibrium.
“And you said I was sick.”
“I have been trained to be objective at all times, detached and not subjective. Every decision I make is calculated.”
The triumphant smile grew a life of its own as he fought the nausea building inside, his mind silently screaming out in helpless denial and outrage.
“You said …and I thought ...”
“Every man thinks through his penis.”
She’d played him right from the start. Every move, every word, had been meticulously delivered purely as a means to get them to the end point, to gather the scientific data required to enable them to produce an effective antidote. But there was role play, and then there was role play.
“I’ve had experience of a woman using her body to lie to me. You can tell yourself as many times as you like you did it for the science but it wasn’t calculation on your mind at the time. I’ve learned to distinguish the difference.”
Her finger eased from the trigger and smoothed against the metal as though stroking a pet, then resumed its position and tightened again.
“That would make you the first man in history to acquire such expertise,” she said.
He looked first to the weapon and then to her face.
“I thought Marius wanted me alive.”
“He does.”
“So why the weapon?” he asked.
“We would prefer you not to leave and I thought this might encourage you to stay.”
“And if I tried to leave?”
“Then Marius will have to work on a corpse, which would not be ideal.”
Matt searched his mind for a route out and prepared to play his ace card.
“I thought Tessa’s life was important to you,” he said. “Or doesn’t she count in your calculated world?”
Her grip eased and tightened.
“If it did I wouldn’t be pointing this weapon at you.”
For moments on end his mind vacillated between hope and despair. He noticed her grip on the weapon tighten and ease, then tighten again, as his increasingly desperate gaze drifted between the barrel of the gun and the uncertainty showing on her face. He took a step.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” she said.
“What would you do if you were me?”
“I told you not to come back,” she said.
So something did count. He stepped to the side and turned his body ever so gently. Maria straightened her arm, aimed the weapon, and fired.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Out of Time