“You did what was important to you. That’s what matters. You liked your work, didn’t you?”
She nodded. Rising, she went to the doorway and looked at the newly plowed fields. “Yes. There’s something nice about having the big picture right there, in my microscope. Being able to move it closer or farther away with just the flick of a lens. It’s all so safe, so under my control. But you know, it never struck me till now. There are no windows in my laboratory. No windows to look out of…” She shook her head and sighed. “Now it seems like nothing’s under my control anymore. But I’ve never felt more alive. Or more afraid of dying.”
“Don’t talk about it, Sarah. Don’t even think about it.” He came up behind her and turned her around so that she was facing him. “We’ll just take one day, one moment, at a time. That’s all we can do.”
“I know.”
“You’re strong, Sarah. In some ways you’re stronger than I am. Only now do I realize that….”
He kissed her then, kissed her hard and long, like a man hungry for the taste of her. In the stone tower above, the birds cooed, and the last light of day faded. Blessed night, the safety of darkness, fell over the fields.
With a groan Nick drew back, breathing heavily. “If we keep this up, we’ll sure as hell miss the train. Not that I’d mind, but…” He pressed his lips once more against hers. “Now’s the time to move. Are you ready?”
She took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m ready.”
* * *
THE OLD MAN had a dream.
Nienke was standing before him with her long hair tied in a delft-blue kerchief. Her wide, plain face was streaked with garden dirt, and she was smiling. “Frans,” she said, “you must build a stone path through the rosebushes so our friends can walk among the flowers. Now they have to walk around the bushes, never through the center, where all the pretty lavenders and yellows are. They miss them completely. I have to lead them through, and then their shoes get muddy. A stone path, Frans, like the one we had in our cottage in Dordrecht.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll ask the gardener to build it.”
Nienke smiled. She came toward him. But when he reached out to touch her, her blue kerchief suddenly vanished. What had once been Nienke’s hair was now a bright halo of fire. He tried to tear it off before it engulfed her face, but great clumps of hair came off in his hands. The more he tried to tear the flames away, the more hair and flesh he pulled off. Bit by bit, trying to save her, he tore his wife apart. He looked down and saw that his arms were on fire, but he felt no pain, nothing at all, except a silent scream exploding in his throat, as he watched Nienke leave him forever.
* * *
IT TOOK WES CORRIGAN a good five minutes to answer the pounding on his back door. When he finally opened it, he could only stand there in his pajamas and bathrobe, blinking in surprise at his nocturnal visitors. Two people stood outside. At first glance he thought them strangers. The man was tall, white-haired, unshaven. The woman was dressed in a nondescript sweater and a gray cap. Their breath steamed in the cool night air.
“What’s happened to the old sense of hospitality?” asked Nick.
Wes gaped. “What the— Nick? Is that you?”
“Can we come in?”
“Uh, yeah! Sure!” Still dazed, Corrigan gestured them into his kitchen and closed the door. He was a short, compact man in his midthirties. Beneath the harsh kitchen light, his skin was sallow and his eyes were puffy with sleep. He looked at his two visitors and shook his head in bewilderment. Then his gaze settled on Nick’s white hair. “My God. Has it been that long?”
Nick shook his head and laughed. “Talcum powder. But any wrinkles you see are mine. Is anyone else in the house?”
“Just my cat. Nick, what the hell is going on?”
Nick strode past him, out of the kitchen and into the living room.
“Was I supposed to know about all this?” called Wes. There was no answer from Nick. He turned to Sarah just as she pulled off her cap. “Uh, hello. I’m Wes Corrigan. And who’re you?”
“Sarah.”
“Yeah, nice to meet you. Is this Nick’s idea of a cheap date?”
“The street looks clean,” said Nick, stalking into the kitchen.
“Sure, it’s clean. They sweep it every Thursday.”
“What I meant was, you’re not under surveillance.”
Corrigan looked sheepish. “Well, actually I live kind of a dull life. Hey, come on, buddy. What gives?”
Nick sighed. “We’re in a little trouble, Wes.”
Corrigan nodded. “I was starting to come to that conclusion. Who’s after you?”
“The Company. Plus or minus a few others.”
Wes stared at him incredulously. Quickly he went to the kitchen door, glanced outside and slid the bolt shut. He turned back to Nick. “You’ve got the CIA after you? What’d you do? Sell a few national secrets?”
“It’s a long story. We’re going to need your help.”
Wes nodded tiredly. “I was afraid of that. Look, sit down, sit down. God, the kitchen’s a mess. I don’t usually entertain at two in the morning. I’ll make us up a fresh pot of coffee. You hungry?”
Nick and Sarah looked at each other and smiled. “Famished,” said Sarah.
Corrigan went to the refrigerator, “Bacon and eggs, coming up.”
It took them an hour to tell him everything. By that time the coffeepot was empty, Nick and Sarah had polished off half a dozen eggs between them, and Corrigan was wide-awake and worried.
“Why do you think this guy Potter’s involved?” asked Wes.
“He’s obviously the case officer. It was his word that got Sarah released. He must’ve ordered those agents to tail us to Margate. But in Margate things all went wrong. While the Company isn’t exactly a tight outfit, they don’t usually screw up this royally without a little help. Someone had that agent killed. Someone who then proceeded to fire on us.”
“The man with the sunglasses. Whoever he is.” Wes shook his head. “I don’t like what you’re up against.”
“Neither do I.”
Corrigan looked thoughtful. “So you want me to check out the file on Magus. Could be tough, Nick. If they’ve got it super-classified, I’m not going to be able to touch it.”
“Get us what you can. We can’t do it alone. Until Sarah finds Geoffrey and gets some answers, we’re out in the cold.”
“Yeah. That’s a mighty uncomfortable place to be.”
He walked them to the back door. Outside, the stars were burning in a crisp clear sky.
“Where are you two sleeping?” asked Wes.
“We have a room near the Ku-damm.”
“You could sack out on my floor.”
“Too risky. We were lucky to get through the East German checkpoint. By now they know we’re in the city. If they’re smart they’ll be watching your house soon.”
“So how do I get hold of you?”
“I’ll phone you. The name’ll be Barnes. Get back to me from an outside line. It’s better if you don’t know where we are.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
Nick hesitated on the doorstep. “You know it’s not that, Wes,” he said, nudging Sarah into the darkness.
“Then what is it?”
“This is nasty business. It’s better if you don’t get too deeply involved.”
Nick and Sarah turned and headed into the night. But as they left, they heard Wes say behind them, softly, “Buddy, you just got me involved.”
* * *
AS DAWN BRIGHTENED outside their window, Sarah lay snuggled in Nick’s arms. Despite their exhaustion, neither of them could sleep; too much depended on what happened today. At least they were no longer alone. Wes Corrigan was on their side.
Nick stirred, his breath suddenly warming her hair. “When this is over,” he whispered, “I want us to be just like we are now. Just like this.”
“When this is over…” She sighed and stared up at the bare whi
te ceiling. “I wonder if it’ll ever be over. If I’ll ever go home again.”
“We’ll go home. Together.”
She looked at him with longing. “Will we?”
“I promise. And Nick O’Hara always keeps his promises.”
She turned her face into the hollow of his shoulder. “Oh, Nick. I want you so much. I don’t know anymore if I’m blind or scared or in love. I’m so mixed up.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Aren’t you confused? Just a little?”
“About you? No. It sounds crazy, Sarah, but I really think I know you. You’re the first woman I can say that about.”
“What about your wife? Didn’t you know her?”
“Lauren?” His voice, so warm and gentle a moment before, all at once sounded hollow. “Yeah. I guess I did know her. When it was over.”
“What went wrong, Nick?”
He lay back against the pillows. “You know the old saying? That there are two sides to every story? Our marriage was a perfect example. If you asked Lauren what went wrong, she’d say it was my fault. She’d say I didn’t understand her needs.”
“And if I asked you?”
He shrugged. “As time passes you get a sense of perspective. I guess I’d have to say it was no one’s fault, really. But I can’t forget what she did.” He turned to Sarah with such a look of sadness that she could almost reach out and touch his pain. “We were married—oh, three years. She liked Cairo. She liked the embassy whirl. She was an outstanding foreign service wife. I think that’s one reason she married me. She thought I could show her the world. Unfortunately my career required going to places she didn’t quite consider civilized.”
“Like Cameroon?”
“That’s right. I wanted that post. It would only have been for a year or two. But she refused flat out to go. Then I got offered London, which made her happy. It might have all worked out eventually. Except…” His voice trailed off. Sarah felt his arm stiffen beneath her shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell me, Nick. Not if you don’t want to.”
“People always say time heals all wounds. But sometimes it doesn’t. You see, she got pregnant. I found out in London. She didn’t tell me—the embassy doctor had to come up and slap me on the back with the news. Told me I was going to be a father. I was—hell, Sarah, for about six short hours I was so high they had to peel me off the ceiling. Then I got home. I found out she didn’t want it.”
There was nothing Sarah could say to ease his pain. She could only hope that when he’d finished talking, he’d find some comfort in her arms.
“Sometimes I wonder,” he said. “I wonder what it would have looked like. Whether it would have been a boy or a girl. What color its hair would’ve been. I catch myself counting the years, thinking of all the birthdays it never had. I don’t have much family. I wanted that baby. I practically begged her for it. But Lauren called it an inconvenience.” He looked at Sarah with bewilderment in his eyes. “An inconvenience. What was I supposed to say to that?”
“There’s no answer you can give.”
“No. There isn’t. That’s when I realized I didn’t know her. We had all kinds of fights then. She flew home and… took care of the problem. She never came back. I got the divorce papers a month later. Special delivery. It’s been four years now.”
“Do you ever miss her?”
“No. I was almost relieved when the papers came. I’ve been on my own ever since. It’s easier that way. No pain. Nothing.” He touched her face and a smile formed on his lips. “Then you walked into my office. You with your funny glasses. The first day I saw you, I wasn’t paying attention to your looks. But you took off those glasses and then all I saw were your eyes. That’s when I wanted you.”
“I’m going to throw those old glasses away.”
“Never. I love them.”
She laughed, grateful for the kind and funny things lovers say. For the first time in her life, she almost felt beautiful.
A breeze blew in the open window, carrying with it the faint smell of exhaust from the street below. Berlin was waking up. Sounds of traffic drifted in: the honk of a horn, a bus roaring by. The night was over. It was time to make that phone call.
“Sarah? Have you thought about what happens when we find him?”
“I can’t think that far ahead.”
“You still love him.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know who I loved anymore. Not Simon Dance. Maybe the man I loved never existed. He was never real.”
“But I am,” whispered Nick. “I’m real. And unlike Geoffrey Fontaine, I’ve got nothing to hide.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IS THIS WHERE I’ll find him? The thought played over and over in Sarah’s mind as they rode the bus north, past broad, clean streets, past avenues where shopkeepers were out in the early morning sunshine, sweeping the sidewalks.
A half hour earlier, they had called the number on Eve’s phone bill and learned it was a flower shop. The woman on the other end had been courteous and helpful. Yes, the shop was easy to find. It was several miles north of the Ku-damm. The bus stop was only a block away.
It was not a good part of town. Sarah watched as the broad streets gave way to alleys littered with glass and a neighborhood of squat, shabby houses. Here, children played in the streets, and old men sat dully on their porch steps. Was Geoffrey hiding in the back room of one of these houses? Was he waiting for her in the basement of a flower shop?
At a street corner, they stepped off the bus. A block away they found the address. The shop was small, with dirty windows. On the sidewalk just outside sat plastic buckets overflowing with roses. A tiny brass bell tinkled as they opened the door.
The smell of flowers overwhelmed them. Inside, a plump woman of about fifty smiled at them across a counter piled high with satin ribbons and roses and baby’s breath. She was making bouquets. For a few seconds, her gaze lingered on Sarah, then it settled on Nick. “Guten tag,” she said.
Nick nodded. “Guten tag.” Casually he wandered about the shop, noting the refrigerators with their sweating glass doors and the shelves of vases and china figurines and plastic flowers. Near the door was a funeral wreath, packed in cellophane and ready for delivery. The shop woman clipped the thorns from the roses and began to wind wire ribbon around the stems. It was a bride’s bouquet. She hummed as she worked, not at all perturbed by the silence of her two visitors. At last she put the bouquet down and her eyes met Sarah’s.
“Ja?” she asked softly.
Sarah pulled out Geoffrey’s picture and placed it on the counter. The woman stared at it but said nothing.
Nodding at the photograph, Nick asked her a question in German. She shook her head. “Geoffrey Fontaine,” he said. The woman didn’t react. “Simon Dance,” he said. Again the woman only stared at him blankly.
“But you must know him!” Sarah blurted. “He’s my husband—I have to find him.”
“Sarah, let me—”
“He’s waiting for me. If you know where he is, call him. Tell him I’m here!”
“Sarah, she doesn’t understand you.”
“She has to understand! Nick, ask her about Eve. Maybe she knows Eve.”
At Nick’s questions the woman shrugged again. She knew nothing at all about Geoffrey. Or if she did know, she wasn’t talking.
To have all their hopes end like this! After traveling halfway across Europe, they had reached nothing but a dead end. Sick with disappointment, Sarah slipped the picture back into her purse. The German woman calmly turned her attention to wrapping the bouquets in green tissue paper.
Sarah turned miserably to Nick. “What do we do now?”
He was staring off in frustration at the funeral wreath. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I just don’t know.”
The shop woman began tearing off sheets of tissue paper. The soft ripping noise made Sarah shudder.
“Why here?” she murmured. “Why would she call this place? There had
to be a reason.”
Sarah wandered to the refrigerator and stared through the glass at the buckets of carnations and roses. The smell of flowers was beginning to sicken her. It reminded her too vividly of a painful day on a cemetery hilltop just two weeks ago. “Please, Nick,” she said quietly. “Let’s leave.”
Nick dipped his head at the shop woman. “Danke schön.”
The woman smiled and beckoned to Sarah. Puzzled, Sarah went to the counter. The woman held out a single rose with a tissue-wrapped stem and murmured, “Auf wiedersehen.” Then, gazing steadily, the woman gave the rose to Sarah. Their eyes met. It was only the briefest of looks, but in that instant Sarah understood its significance; something had just been passed to her. Something for her eyes only.
Nodding, she accepted the rose. “Auf wiedersehen!” she said. Then she turned and followed Nick out of the shop.
Outside, Sarah clutched the rose tightly in her fist. Her mind was racing; the stem felt like a hot poker. It took all her willpower not to tear away the tissue paper and read the message she knew was written inside. But something about the woman’s eyes had conveyed another message, a warning. A look that said, You are in danger, from someone nearby.
But the only person nearby was Nick.
Nick, the man she trusted, the man she loved.
Since Geoffrey’s disappearance, Nick had been her friend, her protector. Whenever she’d needed him, he’d been there. Had it been mere coincidence? Or had it all been planned? If so, it had worked brilliantly. They had picked the right man for the job. They had known she’d be frightened and lonely, that she’d be desperate for a friend, for someone to trust. Then, like magic, Nick had appeared in London. Since then he’d been with her almost twenty-four hours a day. Why?
She didn’t want to believe it, but the answer was staring her right in the face. Surveillance.
No, she couldn’t be sure. And she loved him.
But the woman’s look of warning had burned into her memory; she couldn’t forget it.
The bus ride seemed to take forever. All the way back, Nick’s hand rested on her knee. His touch burned like a brand into her skin. She wanted to meet his eyes, but she was afraid of what she might see. Afraid that he would read her fear.