She snapped her attention back from above, went down the long central hall to the library. She stood in the doorway, peeked inside. Her mother sat in the wash of sunlight from the bay window at the far end of the library, but Nikki?s gaze was drawn immediately to her father?s portrait over the enormous stone fireplace.
Horace Cornwall?s imposing image dominated the library in much the same way the old patriarch had dominated the family when alive. Thick white hair, square jaw, conservative blue suit. Horace had sat for the portrait after he?d lost an eye in Panama locking horns with Noriega?s goons, so there was a patch over the left eye. On the mantel below the portrait sat a row of keepsakes, framed citations, other awards, and even a sheathed cavalry saber.
Tonya Cornwall was a handsome older woman in her sixties. She was still lean, with raven hair. She sat in a rocking chair near the window, knitting a scarf well over sixty feet long. She?d met Horace while still in the Israeli Secret Service. He?d been a journeyman field operative in the CIA. Their passionate affair had lasted three exciting years before he?d knocked her up. Nine months later, she quit the Secret Service, left Israel, moved to Horace?s family home in New Orleans, and given birth to Nikki.
Father had finally met his end teaching Afghan rebels to blow up the Taliban with shoulder-launched rockets. He?d been in his tent, eating lamb on a stick, when someone tossed in a grenade.
But in the years before he?d been exploded, Horace had taught Nikki much in the ways of death and stealth and global politics. So had her mother, Tonya. Nikki was expert in five different martial arts and competent with any ordnance currently in use by any military in the world. While other kids were playing video games, she?d learned to take apart and reassemble an M16 while wearing a blindfold. For her eighth-grade talent show, she?d taken volunteers from the audience and knocked apples from their heads by hurling meat cleavers. This was followed by a frantic call from the school principal, who expressed his concern for the lives and limbs of Nikki?s classmates.
Now Father was dead, and Mother was not altogether well. After surviving the Cold War and years of dangerous, covert missions, an ordinary robber in the French Quarter had lodged a .22-caliber bullet into an extradelicate portion of Tonya Cornwall?s brain. Expensive surgeons had been flown in from Vienna and California, and while Tonya had come out of the surgery alive and in reasonably good physical condition, it was generally understood she would never be quite right again.
Often Nikki?s mother would go for days or weeks without any sign of trouble. Then she might suddenly forget where she was or what year it happened to be, and on extreme occasions she might mistake complete strangers for Palestinians and attack them with astounding stealth and speed not usually found in a geriatric woman.
So that?s why Nikki approached her mother slowly, without making any sudden moves. She didn?t want a knitting needle in the eye.
?Hello, Nikki.? Her mother didn?t look up from her knitting, the needles clicking a steady rhythm. Mother hadn?t knitted before her brain injury, but now there was something soothing about the monotony of it. She could sit in the same chair for hours until she ran out of yarn.
?What are you making?? Nikki asked.
?A scarf.? Her voice sounded fine to Nikki, smooth and level and not at all crazy. ?I?m not sure about this dark green. I made one for you. A lovely plum color but I?ve lost track of it.?
Nikki followed the endless scarf with her eyes until she reached a plum stretch about six feet long. ?It?ll turn up.?
?Your father called from Cuba,? she said. ?He?ll be home this weekend.?
?No he won?t, Mother. The Taliban blew him to bits in Afghanistan. Remember??
She smiled indulgently at her daughter, returned to the knitting. Nikki bent over, kissed her on top of the head.
Nikki left her mother in the library, climbed the sweeping staircase up to the second floor, and went into her room. She flopped on the bed, took the phone from the nightstand, and dialed the man with the voice.
?Yes?? he answered.
?There?s been a delay.? Nikki explained about Foley.
?Do you have any leads?? the voice asked.
She pulled her bag into her lap, fished around for the photo. ?I need you to track down a number.?
?Tell me.?
She read him the phone number from the back of the old photograph. She heard typing. The voice was at his computer. It took him less than ten seconds. ?A small town in Oklahoma, north of Pawhuska.?
?What the hell?s a Pawhuska??
