Charlie stood and walked to the kitchen bar. He poured himself a small drink of Glenlivet scotch in a shot glass. “Well,” he said. “I guess I’m going to have to find him, then, aren’t I? I just hope Keller was careful.”
“Yes.”
“We have an address now.”
Anna sighed. Moments later, her eyes changed. “Can we do something else, first?” she said, her voice sounding timid and childlike. Charlie sipped his drink and set the glass down. “Before it gets too late? That thing you wanted to practice?”
“Oh. Yes.” He smiled. “I think we probably should.”
She came toward him. Charlie felt her silk-like hair and smooth skin against his face. He folded his arms around her back and held on. In the bedroom, they began to take off clothes, hurrying, as if there was a need to do it quickly or the opportunity would pass.
“You’re not going to say this is wrong, are you?”
“I was thinking about it,” she said.
They reached for each other on the bed and kissed, then made love slowly and satisfyingly. He held her afterward and she held him.
Lying in the dark, he said, “You’re not sleepy at all, are you?”
“Not really.”
“You’re thinking about Vogel. What’s coming.”
“Of course. How could I not be?”
“Tell me more about him.”
She did, for nearly a half hour, unmooring thoughts that he knew she had never shared, relaying details about the projects she had worked on with him. Afterward, they held each other again, and Charlie closed his eyes and felt ready for sleep. He may have actually been sleeping when he heard her voice again.
“There’s one other thing,” she said.
“Hmm.”
“You never did tell me about the tattoo on your ankle. Angelina.”
“Oh.”
“You said the next time we met.”
“Did I?”
“Yes. You said that in Nice. Who was she?”
“Just someone I went to school with. Back at Princeton. A lot of years ago.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t really say.”
“Did she break it off?”
“I can’t remember. I think we both did, actually.”
“Why?”
“I guess because we looked into the future and didn’t see the same thing. She was on a fast track. An attorney. Someone who was destined to have a big public career. I wasn’t. We were smart enough to figure that out.”
“Any regrets?”
“None.”
“Good.”
Several minutes later, he realized that she was sleeping. Charlie felt her ribcage lifting with each breath, her heart beating on his arm. It was a very nice feeling, and he wanted to stay awake a while longer so he could savor it.
THIRTY-EIGHT
CHARLES MALLORY WAS THINKING about Anna as he entered the hexagonal terminal building of Berlin’s Tegel Airport. His flight on Lufthansa Airlines left at two minutes past eight, arriving in Basel three hours later. But everything changed when he came to an airport newsstand and saw the cover of the
He closed his eyes and then looked again, incredulously, at the headline, knowing it was wrong. Feeling guilty and angry, at himself and at who had done this. Knowing it was the same people who had beat him to Kampala, whom he had beat to Nice. The Hassan Network. Wondering if an autopsy would show traces of the thing that had killed his father: ouabain.
JON MALLORY DOZED off occasionally as the diesel bus wound along the shore of Lake Geneva and then up into the mountains. He dreamed at one point that he was on the Washington Metro, holding a stainless-steel pole as the train barreled through the darkness, and suddenly noticed Kip Nagame sitting at the other end of the subway car. Jon woke with a start and was dazzled by the brightness of the afternoon sky.
Finally the bus came to a plateau in the Vaud Alps, where the shuttle driver dropped him at his destination, 6 Lake Street—a small, chalet-style house by itself on a hillside just past a charming Alpine ski village. There was a sprinkling of snow in the air.
Jon Mallory stepped out and took in the beauty of the jagged, white-topped mountains, listening to the vast silence. He saw a squat, broad-shouldered man coming toward him, his footsteps stealing the mood. And then, as he came closer, Jon recognized Ben Wilson, the man who had “kidnapped” him in Nairobi. A man employed by his brother, it turned out.
“Welcome,” he said. The two shook hands. Then Ben turned and escorted Jon up the sidewalk to the house. In front was a one-room concrete guard house. A man sitting inside nodded to him but didn’t speak. Jon saw the gun holstered on his waist and three surveillance monitor screens. Wilson led him inside the house and through the rooms. Tall, alpine style ceilings. Sturdy walnut furniture, teak floors, log-style tables, a rocking chair.
“Nice place.”
“It is,” Ben Wilson said. “You’re safe here. The computer’s for you. There’s plenty to eat and drink. Okay? You have nothing to do for a couple of days but write. Your brother wants you to tell the story as you know it. We will transmit it for you.”
“Where
“No. But he arranged for your safe passage here, and for round-the-clock security. Your brother wants you to begin writing the story now. He will be in touch with you in a couple of days with more information. He wants you to know you are safe here. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Jon sensed there was more behind his brother’s message, but he wasn’t sure what.
“Settle in for a few minutes. I’ve got to do something before I can leave.”
Jon unpacked. He was jotting notes on his laptop when Ben Wilson returned.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Your brother asked me to do this. It’s for your own safety. You’re going to have to trust us.”
With no further warning, Ben Wilson held his arm and stabbed a syringe needle into the palm of Jon Mallory’s right hand.
EUROAIRPORT BASEL MULHOUSE Freiburg is one of the few airports in the world operated jointly by two countries: France and Switzerland. It’s located over the border of France, four miles northwest of Basel. A city that, for many years, had been an international hub of the pharmaceuticals industry, home to one of the world’s largest bio-technology clusters.
The Rhine divided the city into two parts: Grossbasel on the south and west, with the medieval Old Town and Kleinbasel, or Little Basel, on the north bank. Horst Laboratories was in the Grossbasel district, south of the river.
