Intelligence Service, I’d always tried to turn my back on the guilt, remorse, and self-doubt that always followed a job; what was done was done. But watching her trying to deal with it moved me more than I’d thought possible.
I’d been sent to Panama in September 2000 to coerce a local drugs racketeer into helping the West. Carrie and Aaron had been my local contacts; they’d been environmental scientists running a research station near the Colombian border, and on the CIA payroll as low-level intelligence gatherers. I was staying at their house when the racketeer’s boys came looking for me, and Aaron had paid the price.
There hadn’t been many days since when I didn’t wonder if there’d been something more I could have done to save him.
There was another photograph of Carrie taken in her mother’s kitchen at Marblehead. She was cooking clam chowder. Just to one side of her was a framed black-and-white portrait of her with her father, George, a handsome, square-jawed all-American in a uniform, probably taken in the early sixties.
I gazed at the one of her standing outside her college. Carrie had been encouraging me to give the place a try; I’d always loved medieval history, and had been reading quite a lot about the Crusades lately. I’d told her I wasn’t sure the whole mature-student thing was me, working in Starbucks, being bossed by an eighteen-year-old manager. I hadn’t quite gotten around to telling her that my formal education had ended when I was fifteen, so the college was unlikely to take me on as a janitor, let alone enroll me in one of its courses.
I guessed there was quite a lot of stuff, one way or another, that I hadn’t told Carrie. There was my trip to Algeria, for a start. It wasn’t the job itself; I wouldn’t have said a word about that anyway. It was the fact that I’d promised her I’d never get involved in dirty work again. The carrot George had dangled in front of me was irresistible; with American citizenship papers in my pocket, I’d be free to work at whatever I wanted. But I wasn’t sure Carrie would appreciate the method behind the madness.
The story I’d told her was that I’d been offered three weeks’ work escorting thrill-seekers into Egypt. After the 9/11 attacks, tourism to the Middle East had all but dried up, and the few travelers still brave enough to go wanted guides. Carrie agreed it was a good idea for me to make some money before I started the long process of applying for citizenship. Until that happened, all I could do were menial jobs, so money would be tight. I hadn’t a clue how I was going to explain to her why my citizenship had come through so fast, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. I sat and looked out at the dull gray day as ice-covered trees zoomed past along the side of the track and vehicles in the distance with cold engines tailed exhaust fumes behind them. It wasn’t a good start to us being together, but it was done now. I should just look to the future.
After two days of moseying around, ninety feet below the Mediterranean, following the North African coastline, we’d finally made it back into Alexandria. The weather had closed in as predicted about ten hours after we got on board, not that we knew, so far below water. A Chrysler MPV was waiting at the dockside; somebody took my bergen, and that was the last I saw of it. For the next week I just had to wait in a hotel room in Cairo while the head I’d brought back was confirmed as Zeralda’s. If not, we might have been sent back to get the correct one.
I still didn’t know why I’d been asked to bring back Zeralda’s head and I still didn’t care. All that mattered was that George was coming to Boston in a few days’ time, and I’d be getting Nick Stone’s shiny new U.S. passport, social security number, and Massachusetts driver’s licence. I was about to become a real person.
I looked around the train. Most of my fellow travelers had now gotten bored looking at the jerk brushing his teeth and wiping the foam that ran down his chin, and were buried in their papers. The front pages were plastered with the war in Afghanistan, reporting that everything was going well and there were no casualties. Northern Alliance fighters were silhouetted against the sunset as they stood watching U.S. Special Forces soldiers carrying enough gear on their backs to collapse a donkey.
I looked out and chewed on my brush. To my right, and running parallel with the track, was the coast road, also cutting through the icy marshland. We were overtaking a taxi, his side windows festooned with patriotic imagery; there was even a little Stars and Stripes fluttering from his aerial. I couldn’t see the driver, but knew he just had to be an Indian or a Pakistani. Those guys didn’t want to leave anything to chance in these troubled times.
The marshland petered out, and whitewashed clapboard houses sprang up on either side of the train, then the blur of supermarkets and used-car lots also draped in the Stars and Stripes. I felt my pulse quicken with anticipation. I didn’t have to work for the Firm (British Intelligence) any more, didn’t have to do anymore jobs for George. I really felt I’d been given a new start, that life was coming together. I was free.
Chapter 6
I shoved the toothbrush into my brown nylon duffel bag as the train came to a halt and people stood and got their hats and coats on. The automatic doors drew back to reveal the signs for Wonderland Station, and I stepped out of the train, hooking the bag over my shoulder. I got an immediate and fierce reminder that I wasn’t in North Africa anymore. The temperature was several degrees below zero. I zipped up my fleece jacket, which did nothing to keep out the bitter wind as I joined the throng heading for the barrier.
She was standing by a ticket desk, dressed in a green down jacket and a Russian-style black sheepskin hat, her breath billowing about her face as we both waved and smiled.
I got through the barrier and threaded my way through the crowd. Taking her in my arms, I planted a big, exaggerated kiss on her forehead, hoping that the toothpaste routine hadn’t been in vain. I ran my fingers gently down her cheek as I drew back and we exchanged huge smiles.
Her large green eyes stared into mine for several seconds, then she hugged me hard. “I missed you big-time, Stone.”
“Me too.” I kissed her again, properly this time.
She linked her left arm in mine and rubbed her free hand up and down my stubble. “Come on,” she said. “Places to go, things to do. Mom’s at a church meeting until this evening so you don’t have to say hello until later. Gives us a little time.” She rested her head on my shoulder as we walked outside. “But we’re not going home just yet. There’s something I want you to see on the way.”
We weren’t quite in step: the leg she’d broken in Panama had left her with a slight limp. I grinned like an idiot. “I’m all yours.”
The dog-track parking lot was used by commuters during the day. The November air had already worked its magic on line upon line of windshields and frozen them white.
I looked down at her face poking out from the sheepskin. “How’s Luz?”
“Oh, she’s fine. She says hi. She might be coming back next week — with a new friend.”
“It’ll be good to see her. Who’s the lucky boy?”
“David somebody, I think.” She turned to me. “But you’re not to—”
“I know.” I held up my hand to swear the oath. “No jokes, don’t worry, I won’t embarrass her…” If I did, though, it wouldn’t be the first time.
We reached the main drag and waited for the lights, along with ten or so other pedestrians heading for the lot. “So, how was your trip? I notice I didn’t get a card of the Pyramids like I was promised.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that I thought by the time I got back into Cairo and mailed it I’d be here. Especially this time of year…”
“Not to worry. You’re back, that’s all that matters.”
The traffic stopped and the green signal ushered us across.
“Did you get hit by the storms?”
“We were much farther south.”
“I was worried.” Those little lines appeared at the corners of her eyes. “Six hundred people died in the floods in Algeria….”
I looked straight ahead. “Six hundred? I didn’t know.”
We’d just gotten in among the cars when she stopped and faced me, her arms pushed in under mine and linked around my waist. “You stink like a camel, but it really is good to have you back all the same.” She kissed me lightly on the lips, her skin cold but soft. “You know what? I don’t want you to go away ever again. I like you right
