murmured.
Molly lifted her head from his shoulder and gave him the beginning of a smile. “I can take care of myself…”
He smiled back. “Well, I can kiss away the tears while you're taking care of yourself, smartass.”
“Deal,” she whispered.
“Now if you'll tell me,” he murmured, glancing over her head to assess the direction of the bedroom, “where the spare bedroom is, I think I'll turn in for the night.”
“It's early,” she teased, licking his chin.
“Fatherhood is exhausting.” He winked at her. “Arguing with the mother of my child is what's exhausting,” he amended, starting down the polished parquet hallway.
“I'm not accomplished,” she whispered, thinking of all the women in his past, “like all… all those-”
“I don't want that, Honeybear,” he murmured, crossing the threshold of the bedroom. “I just want to feel your warm body next to mine, feel the woman I love in my arms, touch your sweet face. I don't want accomplishments, sweetheart, only you, my Honeybear, the mother-” his voice grew ragged “of my child.” It frightened him how helpless he was to the deep emotion he'd thought long vanished.
“Promise me something,” Molly said, her arms tightening on his shoulders.
“Anything.”
“Keep your girlfriends in the closet.”
He set her on her feet and placed his hands very gently on her shoulders. “No girlfriends,” he said, his dark eyes solemn. “I'll promise that instead.”
Her eyes shone with happiness, and he smiled because she meant to be practical and civilized but was as jealous as he.
“I don't want any other woman. I'd be a fool to waste my time. I'm holding
“And then what happens?” she teased, sliding her arms around his waist.
“We start on the second ninety-two years.”
Molly's eyes filled with tears. “Sometimes I'm not as strong as I say I am.”
“That's what I'm here for,” he whispered, reaching up to brush away a tear. “I'll take up the slack when you're too wacked out to be strong.”
“Like now. Oh, Carey, everything's happening too fast,” Molly cried. “All I know for certain is I love you. The rest-” Panic was closing in. “Tell me the rest will be fine,” she softly entreated, overwhelmed by the sudden changes in the fabric of her life.
His life had been full of attractive people and congenial events, visited by success, insulated by wealth. Not in a grandiose way, but with a security he'd never had to question. What makes one person so special to you that life dims without them? He didn't know the answer. But only Molly could evoke this happiness, and until now he'd never comprehended the extent of his own sadness. He needed her.
“I love you, Honeybear,” he whispered, “more than anything. And everything's going to work out. From now on,” he vowed, “life is going to be perfect. Guaranteed.”
CHAPTER 22
T he following morning in Rome, Shakin Rifat was seated at his desk an hour earlier than usual. Even for a man trained to give away nothing in his expression, the fire of triumph couldn't be disguised. He was leafing through a dozen black-and-white photos taken with a telephoto lens, developed in a private jet that flew across the Atlantic the previous night and landed at the secluded airstrip thirty miles north of Rome an hour after daybreak.
The photos were of a blond man talking to a young girl with shoulder-length hair. The sequence of shots showed her placing her bicycle in an elaborate stand, then handing the man a package, only to take it back in the next two frames. Both subjects had the same color hair; both subjects had winged black brows; the similarities had been definitively cataloged by Shakin Rafit, his gratification heightened with each enumerated resemblance. Nose, eyes, chin, the same subtle curve of upper lip. The child was a girl, of course, so the strength of form was modified, but in a way, a girl was much better for his purpose. A father would do anything to save his helpless young daughter from harm.
Shakin pushed the photos into a neat pile, a gold signet ring on his left hand catching the light, then leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his dark, aquiline face, a quality of animal assurance in his relaxed posture.
At last he had a way to put pressure on Egon.
Leisurely reaching out, he rang for his secretary. When the young man walked in and noted Shakin's satisfied smile he said, “The photos were pleasing?”
“Very. Mete told you?”
“Only that the young girl appears to be-”
“
“Jorge is amenable to a percentage cut?”
“He'd prefer buying the technical data outright, but I'm not so inclined. Everyone wants this prototype. All the third-world nations currently producing arms under license will pay for it. But Brazil will pay the most. Have you ever been to Rio?” Rifat leaned back in his chair and looked at his secretary who still bore the stamp of a hardened officer beneath his tailored suit and custom-made shoes. “You'll like it,” Rifat continued with a smile, answering his own question, aware of Ceci's postings over the last ten years.
“What sort of timetable will you give to Colonel Jorge?”
“That depends on how soon you can kidnap the girl.”
Ceci shrugged dismissively. Mete had filled him in on the disposition of the apartment and inhabitants. “Two days at the most once we arrive,” he said casually, “but I'll need a week to ten days to round up my team. Reha's in Marseilles arranging for the delivery of the gum base, Husameddin's in Athens finishing the arms transfers out of Bulgaria, and Timur's back in Kemer burning away the days and nights in a state of seminudity at the Club Mйditerranйe.”
“Austerity has never been Timur's strong suit.”
“But since he flies anything that lifts off the ground…”
Rifat smiled. “We indulge his vices…”
“Or do without him.” Ceci smiled back, a younger version of Rifat, perhaps a trifle more elegant in his double- breasted banker's stripe suit, the twenty years difference in their ages distancing Ceci as well from the more brutal circumstances of Turkish military life.
Rifat nodded in agreement. Although Rifat's Turkish father's military background had bred an austerity in him that looked askance at hedonists like Timur, he recognized talent when he saw it. Timur had been a genius with aircraft from the first day of flight training. Under Rifat's expanded aeronautics program during his command, Timur had risen swiftly through the ranks and come to Rifat's attention not only for his flawless performance but for his imaginative maneuvering in all the NATO wargames.
In September, 1980, when Evren won the scramble for power among the generals, when Rifat's faction lost their bid for control and found it prudent to depart Turkey, Timur had chosen to align himself with Rifat even in defeat. “My mother is Armenian, too,” he'd said before offering his services to Rifat, but he had had other more practical reasons, as well. Evren's military coup meant a return to reactionary principles and a suspension of all
