they sip strong Turkish coffee amid velvet cushions while a Translyvanian fiddler plays. Now this walk through the park, a prelude to dinner, and a foil for Scottie's handling. Because Eric has become his developmental, Eric is his latest hard target.
Scottie has thirty-six hours to give, between a stop in Berlin and a flying visit to Istanbul. He is charming and yet uncomfortable in Caroline's presence; his eyes slide perpetually to Eric's face. She suspects that what Scottie craves is a little private conversation with his main man, the guy he put straight into the hot seat; but Eric's conversation these days is minimal. He has locked some demon so deeply within himself that speech is something to hoard, speech alone might show his hand. He plays the Chief of Station to Scottie's Headquarters Dignitary; he pulls out the stops and hits all the bells and whistles; but he is scrupulous in keeping Caroline by his side.
Scottie will not go operational in Caroline's presence. She sees that Eric is using her as a shield, without understanding why. Her position is painful; she has always admired Scottie, after all — he is the father Eric never had, his best friend in the clandestine world. Years later, when Eric is gone and Scottie has abandoned hope, he will turn to Caroline for unconscious comfort; but here in Budapest, on this November afternoon, Scottie eyes her like a delegate from a hostile service. She has turned his Joe.
Scottie is at sea. He hunts perpetually for landmarks, he trolls for intelligence. Beneath the mask of high spirits and bonhomie is a creeping anxiety. He is worried about Eric and all Eric knows; he is afraid that Eric will snap one day like a camel overburdened with straws. A different man might make Caroline his confidante, might break down and ask for explanation — but Scottie knows Caroline for his enemy. She wants to fold up the tent and go home.
She wants Eric to quit the Agency.
Eric can no longer say whether home ever existed.
Scottie sees the rifts in marriage before they heave, before the land slides out underfoot; he blames Caroline for Eric's distance.
The folly of Vajdahunyad Castle towers above them like a bit of Disney plunked down on suspect terrain. Caroline fingers a coin in her left pocket. She answers ScOttie when he offers a word; she tosses the ball of conversation over Eric's head as though they are conspirators, communicating across a garden wall. Eric, as always, has retreated within. His feet find the path of their own accord. His head is sunk into the collar of his coat. He is searching for threats, mapping out protective cover, his eyes are moving constantly. Caroline is on the verge of screaming, Talk to me, God damn it, talk or let me go — but Scottie is admiring the baroque wing of the architectural folly. She outlines the history of Vajdahunyad for his particular edification, she maps whole centuries with one finger in the air. In Washington the breeze would be sharp with wood smoke, a festive smell that quickens the appetite and sings of winter holidays;
but in Budapest the air is yellow and rotten with burning coal. Presently they will put the lake to their backs and turn toward the zoo in the park's northwest corner, not from any desire to see the sad-eyed elephants or the desperate cats pacing in their cages, but because the city's best restaurant, Gundel's, is there in its Art Nouveau palace, and today is cause for celebration.
“How many years has it been?” Scottie asks them now.
“Eight,” Caroline says. “Our eighth anniversary.”
“You kids.” He rests one hand casually on Eric's shoulder, but Eric is staring past him, at a dark patch in the woods.
“I don't think even one of my marriages has lasted that long. But I hope you've got years together. Really. I do.”
While Caroline was dreaming with her head against the window, Shephard stirred in his seat. He banged his tray table, dropped his book in the narrow space between the rows of seats, and swore under his breath. Caroline never moved.
Exhaustion shadowed her eyes; her mouth was parted slightly with deep and even breathing. The plane was starting into its descent. He had to know who Sally Bowles was.
He bent down to retrieve the paperback, and flipped open the leather flap of Caroline's purse. It would be a civilian passport with a blue cover, not her official black diplomatic one.
He riffled delicately through the contents of the purse with his fingertips, tension prickling the back of his neck. There was a zippered compartment. He eased it open with his forefinger, mentally cursing his clumsiness. And felt the folded edge of something.
A matchbook. He thrust it back and felt again — The two-by-two snapshot was of the woman in the black wig. And the name in the data field was one he had heard only three hours before, on the lips of a wiretapped Palestinian.
Jane Hathaway.
What was the other name Sharifhad used? Michael?
Shephard tucked the fake passport back in its compartment and straightened in his seat. His pulse accelerated. Caroline was working with a Palestinian terrorist. Sharif had put her in contact with 30 April. And Wally Aronson clearly had no idea. He drew a sharp breath and ran his fingers through his hair. The plane was steadily losing altitude, and even the flight attendants were strapped in. Was Caroline a terrorist mole in the heart of the investigation? Would she betray them all? Or was she operating under instructions from Washington that no one not even the Agency's own station chiefs was privileged to know?
Shephard closed his eyes. He had gone behind her back and been rewarded with dangerous knowledge. He had chosen this sudden mistrust, this creeping sense of treachery. He would have to live with it now.
And watch Jane Hathaway's every move in Budapest.
Thirteen
Budapest, 9:30 p.m.
A cramping pain curled in Sophie Payne's bowels, making her writhe like a creature possessed. For the second time this night, she vomited blood.
From the wall behind her head came pitiful wails, the voices of delirium. She buried her face in the damp pillow.
The sound of a belt slicing down on exposed skin. A squeal of pain, pathetically suppressed. Jozsef was no coward.
“What did you tell her?” Harsh words, in fluent German.
“I never said anything, Papa! I haven't spoken to her in months!”
“You lie!”
The belt. An agonized whimper.
“You lie!”
The blows were raining fiercer now. The boy would be scarred with weals, the blood bright on his translucent skin.
“For the love of God, stop it .. .”
Sophie whispered.
“You have been talking to your mother,” Krucevic muttered viciously into the dark. “Telling her everything. How else could she know? How else could she find Greta and convince her to give up the vaccine? You gave her the information. You betrayed me, Jozsef! Do you know the damage you've done? We must find her! You must tell me before it is too late!”
“I thought you killed her long ago!” A cry of loss and hatred.
“Killed her?”
“You must have. Why else would she leave me here?”
So it had mattered to Jozsef, this year of abandonment. Sophie thought of his draggled rabbit's foot, the last, pathetic talisman of a normal life. A child's hope against hope that his mother was alive.
“Because she's a coward,” Krucevic spat out. “Your mother is too much of a coward to come after you, Jozsef. She would not dare to face me”
“Where is she, Papa?”
