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TWENTY-SIX
WASHINGTON, DC
STEPHANIE WAS GLAD TO SEE CASSIOPEIA VITT THE LAST TIME she’d worked with the mysterious Moorish woman, they’d been in the French Pyrenees, embroiled in a different dileet out of here," Vitt said
Stephanie stood from the bench and allowed Heather Dixon’s head to smack the wooden slats
"That’ll leave a nasty bruise," Vitt said
"Like I care She was about to have me killed You want to tell ht need help He didn’t like the feeling he was getting frohborhood-New York-so he asked if I could keep an eye on you"
"How’d you find me?"
"Wasn’t hard"
For the first time Stephanie was appreciative of Thorvaldsen’s secretive ways
"Remind me to include him on my Christht like that"
Stephanie ht she was my friend"
"Hard to come by in your business"
"Cotton is in deep trouble"
"Henrik thinks the sa to provide help"
"At the s us to our other problem"
She did not like the sound of those words
"Ms Dixon didn’t coton Monument "Two men in a car over that knoll And they don’t look Israeli"
"Saudis"
"Now, that’s a feat How did you e to piss everybody off?"
Two men crested the knoll, headed their way
"No time to explain," Stephanie said "Shall we?"
They hustled in the opposite direction, a fifty-yard head start on their pursuers, whichif the men decided to shoot
"I assuency?" she asked Cassiopeia
"Not entirely But I can improvise"
MALONE FORGOT ABOUT ADAM AND SCRAMBLED FROM HIS SAFE position behind the parked car to where Pa to his clothes He turned for an instant and caught a gliht?" he asked her
Paht hand clamped to her injured left shoulder
"Hurts," she said in a strangled whisper
"Letithelps"
He reached out and started to peel her hand away Her eyes ith pain and anger "Don’t"
"I have to see"
He didn’t have to say what they were both thinking Why didn’t she stay upstairs?
She relented, reers, and he sahat he suspected The bullet hadworse would have already been obvious People shot went into shock Their bodies shut down
"Just skimmed you," he said
Her hand re-vised the wound "Thanks for the diagnosis"
"I do have so shot"
Her eyes softened at that realization
"We have to go," he said
Her face scrunched in pain "I’"
"No choice" He helped her to her feet
"Damn, Cotton"
"I realize it hurts But if you’d stayed upstairs like I said-"
Sirens wailed in the distance
"We have to go But first there’s one other thing"
She seemed to recover her composure, determined to keep cal
"Keep a clamp," he told her as they cli should stop It’s not that deep"
Sirens were co?" she asked, as they found the third-floor landing
He recalled what Haddad had said right before the shooting started You taught reat deal I recall every lesson, and up until a few days ago I adhered to the what really ht the Palestinian to keep his o at a moment’s notice Time to find out if Haddad meant what he’d said
They entered the apartment
"Go into the kitchen and find a towel," he said, "while I tend to this"
They had maybe two or three ht space wasn’t en Piles of long-neglected books and papers lay stacked on the floor, the bed unhtstands and dresser loaded like flea-market tables He noticed more maps on the walls Israel, past and present No time to consider them
He knelt beside the bed and hoped his instincts were right
Haddad had called the Middle East knowing a confrontation would ensue When that inevitable conflict arrived, he hadn’t shied fro he’d lose But what had his friend said? I knew you’d come Damn foolish There’d been no need for Haddad to sacrifice hio had apparently swirled through the oldtime
I owe this to the Guardian I shot My debt repaid
That, Malone could understand
He probed beneath the bed and felt sorabbed hold and freed a leather satchel, quickly unbuckling its straps Inside lay a book, three spiral notebooks, and four folded maps Of all the information scattered about the apartment this, he hoped, was the o
He raced back to the den Paed from the kitchen with a towel clamped to her arm
"Cotton?" she said
He heard the question in her voice "Not now"
With the satchel in hand he shoved her out the door, but not before he grabbed a shawl from the back of one of the chairs
They quickly descended
"How’s the bleeding?" he asked as they found the sidewalk
"I’ll live Cotton?"
The sirens were no more than a block away He draped the shawl around her shoulders to shield the injury
They walked casually
"Keep the towel on the arm," he said
A hundred feet and they found a boulevard, plunging into a sea of unknown faces, resisting the telanced back
Flashing lights appeared at the far end of the block and stopped before Haddad’s house
"Cotton?"
"I know Let’s just get out of here"
He knehat she wanted When they’d returned to the apartment he’d noticed, too No blood on the wall None on the floor No suffocating stench of death
And the bodies of Eve and George Haddad were gone
TWENTY-SEVEN
RHINE VALLEY, GERMANY
5:15 PM
SABRE STARED AT THE TOWERING MOUNDS THAT ENGULFED THE river’s edge Steeply scarped banks lined both sides of the narrow gap Deciduous forests abounded, the hillsides relieved only by sparse green scrub and gangly grapevines For nearly seven hundred years the highest elevations had supported fortresses with na the treacherous turn of the Loreley, where ships once foundered on rocks and rapids, high atop the river’s east bank he spied the rounded keep of Burg Katz Farther on stood Stolzenfels, the tawny tint of its two-century-old limestone barely discernible The final marker on his journey appeared a few minutes later
The un
He’d left Rothenburg two hours ago and followed the autobahn north,a constant ninety miles an hour, slowed only on the outskirts of Frankfurt, where he’d caught the beginnings of the afternoon cone: A60 or follow the Rhine on the two-lane N9 He’d decided that the first half of the journey would be here, along the river, but the remainder had to be by autobahn So he slowly threaded his way out of the ancient valley and followed the blue markers for A60
An entrance rahway He revved the rented BMW’s engine and settled into the far-left lane A patchwork quilt of hills, woods, and pasture rolled out on either side
He glanced in the rearview mirror
His tail, a silver Mercedes, was still there
Back a respectable distance and shielded by three cars, the Mercedes could easily have gone unnoticed But he’d been expecting the hi He wondered if the body in the Bau Jonah had probably saved the Israelis the trouble-betrayal came at an extreme cost in the Middle East-but the Jews had also lost the opportunity to interrogate a traitor, which may have soured their hways-three wide lanes, few curves, sparse exits Perfect for speed and privacy A sign inforhty-two kilometers ahead He knew his position Just south of Koblenz, fifteen kilo
He switched lanes