At the far end of the garage, a vehicle careened down the ramp and sped to thm. Before it had even halted, tiny Miles was out.
“Good work, Paul,” he called. “We’ll take him now.”
Another car arrived in the next second, and then several others.
A team of medics had taken Danzig off, bleeding, his face swollen. He had not looked at Chardy. The body of Ulu Beg, too, had been removed, after a ritual of crime-site photography that Chardy could not watch.
Miles meanwhile moved among the various groups of officials who’d arrived at the scene and took it upon himself to represent the Agency’s interests until a higher-ranking officer was located. A Deputy Director was due shortly — Chardy guessed it would not be Sam Melman — and the DCI himself had been awakened and briefed and was now on his way to Langley for an emergency session. It was also said that the President had been awakened, as had members of the National Security Council and the Senate and House Intelligence Oversight committees, each of which had dispatched a man or men to the fourth level.
Chardy stood apart from all this. He drew on a cigarette deeply — he had not smoked for years and at first he coughed. But now he had it down again. He finished the cigarette, tossed it away.
“Got another, Leo?”
Leo Bennis handed him another.
Miles was suddenly there, and as Chardy lit up, Miles whispered to him, “Paul, we can really run with this. You and I, if we play it right. All right?”
“Sure, Miles. We’ll be big heroes. I’ll tell ’em you were in on it from the beginning; you were calling the shots. I’ll tell ’em you were the guy who caught the double.”
“Paul, I’d really appreciate—”
“Forget it.”
“Right.”
Miles bobbed away, disappearing among a group of men in suits who were asking questions.
They were about to lead Yost off. He had been weeping. His face was ruined, his hair messy, his eyes swollen. He could not control himself and nobody had thought to give him a handkerchief. Yet now, sensing Chardy’s gaze on him, he looked over.
It was hard for Chardy to feel anything. He thought he’d see Sam being led off; he’d hated Sam all those years. Yost. Who was Yost? He felt he’d been denied something he’d earned. Ulu Beg was dead. Johanna was dead. And somebody he’d never heard of, or really even known, was behind it all.
They took Yost to a van, surrounded by FBI personnel. Miles had tried to get him released to the Agency for debriefing, but the FBI pulled rank. Still Miles insisted on knowing exactly where they were taking him, who was in charge, and began to establish groundwork for the future.
“Maybe you’ll be big in the Agency now,” said Leo.
“No,” Chardy replied. “I never wanted that sort of thing. I just wanted—”
He stopped suddenly.
“I know where Speshnev is,” he said.
“What?”
“Yost said, ‘Speshnev had planned to kill you himself.’ He did. Leo, get a car, get it fast. Clear these people out of here. Where’s that Ingram? Come on, Leo.”
“Paul!”
Chardy found his weapon — it had been impounded by the FBI and Chardy unimpounded it with a quick threat of violence — and ran for the car, inserting a new magazine as he ran.
He leaped in and turned to Leo as the car peeled out of the garage.
“There’s a last wrinkle. There has to be. To bury Saladin Two forever, to seal it off from living memory.”
“Paul—”
“At the hospital. Speshnev. He has to go for me.”
The car squealed as it accelerated up the ramp, up four levels, and turned onto the parkway, siren wailing.
“He’ll get in too. He’ll find the wing, the room.”
“All our people are gone now,” said Leo. “They all hit the street after Danzig.”
“God help him,” said Chardy, for now he saw what must happen. “God help Ramirez.”
56
It was a strangely quiet night, the strangest, the quietest since he had come north. It was a night for escape, but Ramirez felt so tired. They were putting something in the juice, he figured. His limbs weighed a ton; his vision was blurred, his mind working slowly.
Or maybe Reynoldo Ramirez is slowing down with age. All men must. Why would the dark angel spare you, Reynoldo? You do not even pray except when somebody is shooting bullets at you and in this hospital in the far north among pale, bloodless, calm
He lay in the shadows, watching and not watching the television through his swollen eyes. The bulky bandage on his nose somewhat obscured his view, but it didn’t matter. He felt almost asleep, but not quite. Certainly there was a drug in his bloodstream. The whores! But he had no energy left to hate them.
He was dreaming of escape and food and women. Mostly women: young women, Indian women, virgins to be exact. He had not done anything with his organ in months. It was worse than prison, where for a price a whore would accommodate you.
Then a blond doctor came in.
Eh? A new one.
He stood silhouetted in the doorway. Ramirez waited. So they had not forgotten him, then. A new doctor even. Should he say something to the man, who just stood there? It was clear the man was not sure whether Ramirez was awake or not, for the Mexican’s bandaged face was hidden in the shadow. Ramirez puzzled over this irregularity of etiquette. Should I say something or not?
But they checked in on him often like this, he knew; he’d caught them at it before: peeking in at strange hours to see how their “guest” was doing. So Ramirez was not surprised and not alarmed and decided to lie quietly until the doctor went away.
Yet the doctor did not go away. He looked quickly up and down the quiet hall, then stepped in, pulling the door softly closed behind him.
Most curious.
Ramirez, lying still, watched the doctor slide along the wall. He came to the television, which was mounted on the wall, and reached up for the knob.
Did he want a different show?
But the doctor did not want a different show at all. He turned up the volume a bit, then a bit more.
Ramirez didn’t like this at all. No doctor had ever done this before. Were they going to get rid of him? He was an embarrassment, after all, was he not? Had he not also been responsible for the death of that stupid young boy on the mountain?
Mother of Jesus, help me.
Holy Virgin, give me strength.
I pray, Holy Catholic Mother, for your forgiveness. I have sinned and am a bad man, many times bad, many times, I’ve killed and whored. Forgive me, oh, Holy Mother. He wished he had some strength. He wished he could move; he wished he didn’t feel so doped, so logy.
The doctor came over to the bed, reaching into his jacket. He pulled out a small pistol.
He came closer, as though he could not see, and reached with one hand as though to find the soft throat that must have been in the shadow.
Ramirez felt the man’s fingers at his skin.
Mother of God, help your sinning son Reynoldo.
