“This is the fifth hotel I've called,” Eric said, “and it's not easy for me to use a phone.”
She sat up.
“Jesus God, where are you?”
“In the bathroom. Hear the water?” He must have held the cell phone up to a shower head; she had the dizzying sensation of being run through the wash.
“I have a habit of humming to myself in here. It masks a host of ills. Monologues, tirades, illicit phone calls. Particularly at three a.m. when everyone else is asleep.”
“Eric, where the hell have you been for the past two years?”
“Two years, six months, and thirteen days, Mad Dog. I think you know. I've been with him. The guy you're looking for. And he's been all over the map.”
“Christ,” she breathed. “You sure do take this shit in stride.”
“I killed a child today, Mad Dog.”
Caroline tightened her grip on the receiver. “She was six years old. Her name was Annicka. She was frightened and alone and I took her into the back room and comforted her. I rocked her in my arms and sang a song in English she could never have understood.”
“Where's Sophie Payne, Eric?”
“I told her that everything was going to be all right, that she would see her mama soon.”
“Don't tell me this. I don't want to hear this.”
“And while she buried her face in my shoulder and sobbed, I put a silencer to her temple and I pulled the trigger.”
“You should have put it to your own head first.”
“I considered that.”
Anguish and love and rage welled up in Caroline's throat, choking the words she might have said.
“Welcome to Berlin, Mad Dog.” He sounded faintly amused affectionate, even but it was the voice of a stranger in Eries mouth. Dare Atwood had miscalculated.
She had sent Caroline out to bring the rogue agent home but Caroline could not tempt Eric any longer.
“How did this happen to us?” she whispered.
“I imagine we chose it.”
“Bullshit,” she retorted. “You chose, and the rest of us trailed along me, Sophie Payne, that little girl you shot to death. Why, Eric? Why not be a hero for once and turn the gun on Krucevic?”
“Because getting him for the kidnapping of Sophie Payne isn't enough, Mad Dog.”
His voice had dropped to a whisper, difficult to pick out against the background of rushing water.
“I want to get him for everything. I want the plans, the network, the proof of complicity at the highest levels. I want Fritz Voekl's balls in a sling.”
“And how many more children will you kill?” For an instant, she expected him to hang up. Nothing but the sluice of water pouring over the damned.
“Her mother was already dead,” he told her.
“And Annicka could describe Krucevic if anyone asked. He could not allow her to live.”
“Then let him pull the fucking trigger.”
“It was me or Otto. I couldn't put Annicka into Otto's hands.”
“Eric, tell me where you are.”
“Get out of this, Mad Dog. While you still can.”
“Eric”“ But he was gone.
After that, she didn't pretend to sleep. She turned on all the lights, even the ones in the bathroom, and sat propped in bed with the covers pulled up to her armpits, shivering uncontrollably.
How many people had Eric murdered? Not terrorists, whom she could dismiss as so many bodies in a war — but how many men and women? How many little girls? She'd thought of the dead in Pariser Platz as blood on Mian Krucevic's hands, not her husband's. She knew now that she had been comforting herself with a lie.
She reached for the phone at her bedside and punched in an Agency number. He answered on the first ring.
She imagined him sitting there, silk tie loosened, hand to his salt-and-pepper brow. There would be beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, the result of malaria endemic in his bloodstream. It would be dinnertime in Virginia. He'd be thinking of Kentucky bourbon, neat. She closed her eyes in relief.
“Hey, Scottie.”
“Caroline.” A glance at his Rolex, swiftly calculating the time difference.
“I just heard from our fair-haired boy.”
“How?” He was instantly alert.
“Phone call.”
“Change your hotel, Carrie, and watch your back. Did you get his location?”
“Are you kidding? He wasn't calling on business. He'd just killed a child and needed to justify it.”
“If he calls back — ”
“Scottie,” she interrupted, as though he couldn't possibly have understood the terrible thing she had just said. “Scottie, have you ever killed anyone?”
“Aside from Athens, I've never even carried a gun. Caroline, did you ask him how our missing friend was doing? Did he say anything that might help us find her?”
“No. He shot the breeze and told me to go home.” There was a creak as Scottie shifted in his desk chair.
“He gave you nothing.”
“Squat,” Caroline agreed. “But he'll make contact again. He'll have to. I'll make myself a nuisance.”
“The call was a warning, Caroline. Your next contact could be a bullet in the brain.”
“Scottie,” she cried. “How did this man we both love turn out to be someone we never even knew? Can you tell me that? Have you got a clue?”
“Carrie, remember the open line,” Scottie urged her softly.
She drew a shuddering breath and raked her fingers through her hair.
“This isn't your fault,” he said. “It's not my fault. Neither of us can fix it. So concentrate on what you can fix. Okay?”
“It's part of the training,” she said through her teeth. “You tell these guys that working for the enemy is the ultimate betrayal of their friends, their country, themselves. And at the same time, their job is to convince other people to do exactly that: to sell out everything that matters.”
“The line, Caroline,” Scottie repeated.
“Who can live with that kind of paradox? No wonder people go nuts.”
“Its the nature of the game.” His reproof was like a slap. “Do as we say, not as we do. Cynics handle it best or idealists. People who can live with an inherent contradiction. The others quit after their second tours. Or drink heavily and stay.”
“So which was our fair-haired boy? Cynic? Or idealist?”
“He's out there murdering children, Caroline.”
The truth, inexorable. But she tried one last time.
“Let's say he wants the Big Man. And all the marbles. To do that, he'd have to close his eyes to a certain amount of evil. But that wouldn't necessarily mean that he was evil himself, would it?”
“The ends justify the means? I have heard that sentiment so many times in my life, Caroline, and it still sounds infinitely attractive. And false. We saw the means in Berlin two days ago. No ends justify so much spilling of blood.”
“He wants you to feel sorry for him. He'll use that against you. He has no right, Carrie. He cut you out of his life, remember? He cut both of us out. And I for one don't give a shit about his reasons.”
But Caroline did. Caroline wanted to know why, more than anything in the world.
As though knowing the reasons for deception and betrayal might negate the horror of what had happened, might put her life back into the neat little box in which she had lived. Bitterness flooded her mouth.
