“I understand that,” Bahmad said, reassuringly. “We have every intention of respecting your wishes. You have done so much for us—”
“Yes, yes, but what do you want?” Colonel bin Idris demanded impatiently.
“There is that other matter I asked you to help me with.”
The colonel hesitated for just a second, as if he’d been distracted. “He’s dead.”
“Are you certain? Did you see the body?”
“What was left of it. He got caught in the mob and they tore him apart. There wasn’t much left.”
“How sure are you that it was him?”
“Very sure,” Colonel bin Idris said. “Then thank you again. It is a debt we shall never be able to repay—” Bahmad said, but he was talking to an open line. The colonel had broken the connection.
Bahmad switched off the phone. When a young woman’s father was brutally murdered in a faraway land there was only one logical place for her to go. Sooner or later Elizabeth McGarvey would show up at her mother’s home, if she wasn’t already there, to grieve. He smiled. He would get to kill McGarvey’s wife after all.
At that moment Elizabeth McGarvey was taking her overnight case and hanging bag from her car parked beside Todd Van Buren’s old Porsche. His apartment had once been the carriage house for the family estate. His parents lived in the mansion a quarter-mile up the curving driveway through some woods. They didn’t approve of the fact that he worked for the CIA, but he had been raised to be independent, and they tried not to interfere too much in his life. His independence was one of the things she most admired about him. In some ways he reminded her of her father.
The night was still, the air sweet this far out of the city. Elizabeth hesitated, frightened, at his door. She had thought long and hard about making this move. They’d been lovers for three months. But she valued her own independence, and she didn’t know how she would tell her father, let alone face her mother. But she wanted Todd on more than an occasional basis. She wanted to wake up in the morning beside him, she wanted to show him what kind of a cook she was — her father had taught her a number of French bistro recipes — and she wanted to find out what kind of a cook Todd was. She wanted to be with him when he was sad as well as happy; angry as well as content; confused as well as assured. She thought that she was falling in love with him, but before she made a commitment she wanted to be sure. Tonight, especially, she wanted to be held, to be comforted.
The light over the stoop came on before she could ring the bell and Van Buren opened the door. His eyes lit up, and he started to say something, but then did a double take when he noticed her bags. The expression on his face was comical, and Elizabeth laughed, even though she was in a brittle mood.
“Am I going to have to stand here all night?” she asked. “Or should I drive around the block a couple of times while you get rid of your girlfriend?”
“Your dad’s going to kill me.” He took her hanging bag, and stepped aside so that she could come in. She gave him a peck on the cheek.
Only the light over the leather easy chair was on, a beer on the table beside it, and a book opened on the ottoman. The Sade CD she’d bought him was playing softly. Like her, Van Buren was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt.
She followed him into the bedroom where he hung her bag on the closet door. “I’m glad you’re here, Liz.” He was bigger than her, but he had the compact build and fluid movements of a soccer player. He was an exotic weapons and hand-to-hand combat instructor at the CIA’s training facility, and he sometimes worked special assignments for the Directorate of Operations. She loved his butt, the angles and planes of his masculine face, and especially his hands on her body. He was strong yet very gentle.
When he turned back to her, she was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sadness, and her eyes began to fill. She felt like a complete fool, anything but a McGarvey. “Is it okay that I’m here? Are you mad at me?”
“What’s the matter, Liz.” Van Buren was alarmed.
“Can I stay here at least tonight?” She hated this weakness in herself. Her father despised weaknesses in people.
“You can stay forever, if you want,” he said seriously He took the overnight case from her and set in on a chair, then took her in his arms.
“Don’t say that yet,” she warned. But then she couldn’t talk. She clung to him, her body wracked with sobs. She felt worse than a fool, like a sniveling idiot, but she’d been frightened about her father’s safety for so long that she couldn’t help herself. It was enough for now that she had someone to hold her. Someone other than her mother who had taken the news that her husband had gotten out with more panache than even Elizabeth thought she was capable of. This time her mother had been too strong.
“I love you,” Van Buren said.
She parted and looked into his face, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t making fun of her. She didn’t think she could take that right now. She felt so vulnerable, and yet she knew that she could take him apart. But he was sincere. He honestly cared, and she could see it in his eyes.
“You called me a spoiled brat,” she said stupidly, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Yeah, and you’ve got a chip on your shoulder,” he said. “But you can be my spoiled brat if you’ll ease up a little and let me take the lead every once in a while.”
She couldn’t help herself from laughing. She nodded. “Just don’t get any macho attitudes like ownership.”
“Works both ways, Liz,” he said. He got out a handkerchief and wiped her cheek. She took it from him and did it herself.
“Now, will you tell me what the hell is going on? Is it your dad? Is he okay?”
“They’re taking him to Ramstein. He’s pretty banged up, but the docs say he’ll be fine.”
“Christ. How’s your mother holding up?”
“She’s dealing with it,” Elizabeth said. “I just came from there. Dick Yemm is with her, so I told her that I had to get back to work. I couldn’t stay there tonight.”
Van Buren gave her a sympathetic look. “Are you sure about this?” he asked sincerely. “I mean if you just want to stay the night so you won’t have to be alone right now, I’d understand. I can take the couch.”
She touched his handsome face. “It was going to happen sooner or later. The reasons are all wrong right now, at least they are for me, but I’m glad it’s sooner.”
“So am I,” he said. He took her in his arms again, and now she was done crying. His body felt warm and strong and familiar. Comforting. Like coming home to a place you never knew how much you missed until you were there, she thought warmly.
They kissed deeply, their hands all over each other; exploring, feeling. He picked her up and brought her to the bed. They undressed each other, and then made love, softly and passionately, even though she wanted to rush. She let him take the lead, and when they were finished she was glad she had.
The dark blue van obviously didn’t belong parked on the street across from Kathleen McGarvey’s country club home.
Driving past, careful to keep his speed normal, his eyes straight ahead, Bahmad spotted a dark figure waiting behind the wheel. He had to consider the possibility that the CIA had placed a guard on the woman, which meant that they might be expecting an act of retaliation by bin Laden. It complicated his plans, but not impossibly so. Not yet. He still had time.
At the end of the block he turned right and headed back to Constitution Avenue. The logical thing to do was return to the yacht for a few days, then sail out to Bermuda, or up to Maine and Canada, waste time conspicuously, as planned. Be seen and yet not be seen for what he really was. Get his name in the society columns, make friends, spend money. Become the wealthy international playboy, not bin Laden’s paid assassin.
But he had promised that McGarvey’s daughter would die. The thought of killing her had a certain symmetry to it, considering Sarah’s death, and he had to admit that it excited him too. McGarvey had been an arrogant bastard. Killing his daughter and his wife would be interesting to say the least.
Bahmad smiled his secret smile, and for a moment or two he wondered in one part of his brain if, like bin Laden, he too wasn’t losing his mind. There was a time as a child playing in the park near his house in Beirut when he’d led a life that could be considered normal. Although his memories of that time were hazy and imperfect now,
