“Are you feeling ill?” he suggested.
She pursed her lips. Then she understood: “As a matter of fact, I feel a terrible stomach cramp coming on.”
“Groan loudly.”
“Like this?” She moaned and grabbed her stomach.
“Hey!” Smith called to the guards. “She's sick. Come help her!”
She doubled over and shouted in Arabic, “I'm dying! You've got to help!”
The guards exchanged a look. One raised his eyebrows. The other laughed. They hurled words Jon did not understand. Randi groaned again.
Jon stood, his back bent below the canvas top, and took a step toward the guards. “You've got to?”
One shouted at him, while the other fired his rifle. The shot blasted so close past Smith's ear that the sharp whine seemed to pierce his brain. As the bullet exited out the top of the canvas roof, the two guards motioned him roughly back.
Randi sat up. “They don't believe us.”
“No kidding.” Jon fell onto the seat, his hand over the ear, his head ringing. “What were they saying?” He closed his eyes, willing the throbbing pain to go away.
“That they'd done you the favor of missing. Next time, we're both dead.”
He nodded. “Figures.”
“Sorry, Jon. It was worth a try.”
The truck was turning from narrow street to narrow street, following a twisting route. Its sides continued to rasp occasionally against buildings. She could hear the cries of shopkeepers open long after they should have closed in the hope of one more sale, perhaps their only sale of the day. Sometimes there were the disembodied, scratchy sounds of prewar radios. Everything told her they were staying in the older parts of Baghdad.
She whispered, “They're driving too slowly and staying on the back streets. That's not logical. The Baghdad police go wherever they want. Keeping a high profile is part of the job, but these men are avoiding major thoroughfares.”
“You think they're not police?” He dropped the hand from his ear. The pain was receding.
“They have the uniforms and the high-powered Russian weapons. If they're not police, they'll be dead if they're caught. I don't know who else they could be.”
“I do.”
As he said that, the past week came rushing back, and something happened that he had been fighting: Randi disappeared, and Sophia took her place. His heart ached with every fiber at the sight of her again. Sophia's beautiful black eyes shone out at him, surrounded by the smooth, pale skin and the long, cornsilk hair. Her full lips spread in a sweet smile, showing tiny white teeth. She had that indefinable beauty that was so much more than flesh and bones. It radiated from an inner core of decency and vitality and intellect that transformed mechanics into aesthetics. She was gloriously beautiful in every way.
For one moment of madness, he truly believed she was alive. Just by reaching out, he could gather her into his arms, smell the scent of her hair, and feel the beat of her heart against his. Alive.
He dug deep inside himself, searching for strength.
And made himself blink.
He shook his head to clear it. He had to quit lying to himself. He was looking at Randi.
Not Sophia.
They were in grave danger. He had to face the truth. His stomach felt hollow, like an elevator falling too fast. It was possible neither of them would survive. He could delay no longer.
He had to tell her about Sophia. He had to say the words because if he did not, he was going to slip over into some other world where he could pretend forever Randi was Sophia. He could not allow his emotions to continue these cruel games.
Because it was not just his future at risk. It was Randi's, too, and tens of millions of people who could die from the virus. He could hear Sophia's voice inside his mind: “Shape up, Smith. Just because you decide to live doesn't mean you don't love me. You've got a job to do. Love me enough to get on with it.”
Randi was studying him. “You were going to say who you think the police are.”
He inhaled again, pulling oxygen and sanity into his body. “At the time, I didn't notice. But when they first attacked, their leader said my real name. Not the cover name I'd been going around Baghdad using. I don't see how else he could've known I was Colonel Jon Smith except that he ? all of them ? were hired by the people with the virus. They've been trying to stop me from investigating ever since?”
He made himself see her, not her sister. But as he did, her face tightened as if she realized he was going to tell her something terrible, something that affected her intimately. One more thing she might never forgive him for.
He said gently, “Randi, I have terrible news. Sophia's dead. They murdered her. The people behind all this did it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Randi jerked erect. For a moment Jon had the sensation she had heard something else… not his voice or words. Her face was frozen. The muscles seemed to atrophy. But she gave no other outward sign she had received the devastating news that her sister had been murdered.
In the shocked silence, he felt the truck's every bump and lurch. Their lives depended on it, so he forced himself to pay attention. The truck's speed was increasing. Buildings seemed farther away, and the sounds of voices and radios receded. They must be on a wider street. He noted traffic sounds and bits of conversation from the truck's cab, but that was all.
His pulse throbbed guiltily at his temples. “Randi?”
Suddenly her face collapsed. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she remained erect and motionless. She had heard the words, but she could not understand the meaning. Pain seared through her. Sophia? Dead? Murdered? She rejected them. Impossible. How could Sophia be dead?
Her voice was wooden through her tears. “I don't believe you.”
“It's true. I'm sorry. I know how much you loved her, and she loved you.”
Guilt overwhelmed her. His words were hammer blows. I know how much you loved her.
She had not seen Sophia in months. She had been too busy, too involved in her job. Other people needed her more. She had thought there would be plenty of time later to be close and really enjoy each other again. When they had both done what they had to do.
When Jon Smith no longer took up so much of Sophia's life.
It felt as if her heart were shattering. Angrily she used the fingers of both hands to wipe away her tears.
“Randi?”
She heard his voice. Heard the truck… with a sudden hollowness below the wheels. Her mind quickly shifted, and as if from a great distance she realized they were crossing a bridge. A long bridge with the sound of the truck echoing off water beneath. She heard the rush of open air around them. The far-off cries of men who were night fishing. The bray of a donkey.
And then with an aching rush, she remembered. Sophia. She crossed her arms, trying to hold herself together, and she looked at Jon. There was devastation in his face. His grief looked so deep it could never be erased.
That face was not lying: Sophia was dead.
Sophia was dead.
She inhaled sharply, trying to control herself. Her sister's face kept flashing into her mind. At the same time, she was looking at Jon Smith. She had just begun to think she could trust him. She wanted to believe he had nothing to do with it, but she could not help her suspicions.
His blind arrogance back when he had been treating Mike had led to Mike's death. Had he killed her sister
