Shim reversed course, trying to drag Ward behind the wrecked hulk of the sedan. More shots rang out. He shuddered and swayed but kept going, the bullets having about as much effect on him as if they’d been aimed at gravestones. But the sedan’s gas tank blew and Shim was too close. The explosion showered them with fire. Ward’s clothes burned; he screamed and flailed on the ground. Shim twisted and turned, caught in a violence of flame. He appeared to shrink and grow black, stone turning into cinder, and toppled to the ground.
I tried to stand up again. Another volley of shots hit the front of our van. A blinding pain ripped through my head. I became oddly aware of gravestones glowing with a white radiance as if they were embedded with internal lights. I remember forcing myself to breathe. Someone leaned over me, trying to say something. I could see a mouth moving but couldn’t hear the words, as if I’d been submerged under fifty feet of water. The person faded away. And then I
Thirty-three
Two spears of pain drilled through my temples. I opened my eyes and saw only the gray, amorphous screen that is the landscape of the blind. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, trying to force my vision back. My sight cleared and I could tell the environment actually was gray: concrete block walls, a floor painted prison gray, no furniture, the only daylight coming from a small window near the ceiling.
I lay on a foam rubber mat wedged into a corner of the room. I could hear nothing and prayed that didn’t mean the explosion had destroyed my eardrums. A rough bandage applied to my forearm covered the burn from the hot metal of the van.
When I tried to get up I collapsed on legs so weak it felt as though my bones had been somehow extracted, leaving the flesh intact. I raised myself to my knees and crawled to the outline of a door on the opposite wall. There was no handle or lock so I struggled back, slumping once more onto the foam mat.
When the door did open, a beam of light hit me full in the face. I gave my head a shake and saw Tomas standing in the doorway.
“Well, John,” he said, “welcome back to the world.” It sounded as though he were speaking from far away, but I was relieved that my ears hadn’t been deafened in the firefight.
One of his men had to help me upstairs. It felt like I was climbing a small mountain of mud. On the second floor we went up another staircase to a little rooftop terrace with a stone statuette of a faun, a rust stain marking the path where the water would have tinkled out from his set of pan pipes. I slumped into a plastic chair.
Tomas handed me a glass of tea. “Drink this,” he said. “It will refresh you.”
Any resistance I might have summoned had been wiped out by the trauma of the blast. The cool menthol of the tea slipped agreeably down my throat. Over the wall I could see other rooftop terraces crowning modest buildings in shades of butterscotch, peach, and henna against the backdrop of an azure sky. Clumps of palms waved in the distance. I felt the sun on my face, soft in the cool breeze. I could have been sitting in a
Tomas had acquired a bit of a tan. He looked relaxed and settled, glad to be home.
I finished my tea and set the cup down. Tomas reached for a tray of dates and nuts, asking if I’d like something to eat. I shook my head. Just drinking the tea had produced little spurts of nausea. I didn’t want to push it.
“You’ll feel better in a while,” he said, “no serious damage done.” “Is it true about Laurel?”
Tomas’s air of comfort lessened; he tightened up again. “She’s dead, John.”
Weak though I was, I pushed myself out of the chair and threw myself at him. “You piece of shit. You betrayed us. You may as well have killed her yourself.” His men dragged me away. One of them pulled out a gun. Tomas waved him off and rubbed the spot where my fist had connected with his jaw. “Put that away; it will not be necessary.” His gaze shifted to me. “You aren’t doing yourself any favors, Madison.”
Silence reigned for a few minutes before Tomas spoke again. “They’d already taken her by the time I picked up the engraving. There was nothing I could have done.”
“Ward wanted it. He was willing to make an exchange.”
“You don’t really believe they would have gone through with that, do you?”
“It was my only hope to save her. I was trying to work out a way I could involve the police without Ward finding out. You blew that all to hell and took any chance I had away. How did you know enough to look in the mausoleum anyway?”
“Laurel mentioned Hal’s attachment to his mother. Then Ari passed on what you’d said about the tomb at Trinity. I remembered that place because I’d lived nearby when I went to Columbia. You’d told him you couldn’t get into it. I found the mausoleum with no name and brought a cutting tool with me.”
“And what about me? You abandoned me.”
Tomas did not have a large measure of tolerance at the best of times; it didn’t take much for his patience to break. He yelled, “What did you expect me to do? I had one of Ward’s thugs on my back and barely made it out of the country as it was. Mazare and I took huge risks to bring you here. Consider yourself fortunate. We could have left you to die.”
“Why did you bother?”
Tomas allowed himself a smile. “Perhaps I’m not as bad a man as you like to think.”
“Really? After you killed people in cold blood.”
“Like they were getting ready to do to us, you mean?” “Did they all die?”
“Eris and Shim did. And the two contractors. About Ward, we’re not sure. He was seriously injured, at least. You can appreciate my men didn’t want to linger.”
“How did they find us?”
“The jacket they gave you had tracers sewn into it.”
“They let me escape so they could follow you?”
“Yes.”
“But Mazare checked my jacket and found nothing.”
Tomas smiled again. “Yes, he did check it.”
Seconds elapsed before it dawned on me what he’d done. “Mazare knew the tracers were there. You wanted them to chase us.”
Tomas was actually beaming now. “We trawled for them and they fell for it.”
Anger broke through my exhaustion again. “You and Ward are the same, you know. Human lives mean absolutely nothing to you.”
Tomas dismissed this with a flick of his hand. “Not nothing. But not the most important thing either.”
I let that hang in the air for a minute. “Someone needs to tell the New York police what really happened.”
“When you get back, feel free to tell anyone you like. I certainly won’t. Be careful, though. You were one of the last people seen with both Hal and Laurel. You could be stepping onto a minefield.”
“I’ll take my chances. Where’s Nahum’s engraving? At least let me see that.”
“In due time.”
“What are you talking about—due time? You must have it here. You wouldn’t let it out of your sight.”
Tomas flipped his hand back and forth as if he were swishing away a bothersome fly. “Even this place isn’t safe enough. It must be protected.” My temper surged again. “I don’t believe a word of that.”
My only answer was his contempt. He knew he was in the position of power.
“After what happened to Samuel, everything he went through, you have no right to keep it from me.”
This touched a nerve. “Don’t lecture me about Samuel. I was the one he could count on. You were nothing but a thorn in his side. People felt sorry for him having to put up with you. Laurel told me that back in New York.”
Had she really said that or was he making it up? My own hot shame told me all I needed to know.
His men moved between the two of us. Tomas turned to leave, making it clear our yelling match had come
