somehow understood. Their lovemaking turned wild and passionate and rough. Rapacious. It was as if the violence that had surrounded them was suddenly brought into their bed. She scratched his back and, in a whisper, told him to pull her hair. She bit down into his shoulder until he had to yank his arm away. She stretched her hands out above her head, running them up the headboard, and he realized she wanted him to grab them, to hold her and pin her as if she were restrained. He hesitated, but she nodded her head and her eyes urgently pleaded with him, so he grabbed both of her wrists with one hand and held tight. She moved her head from side to side and finally he realized she wanted the handcuffs. He was caught up in it now, it was out of his control, he was too excited, so he reached over and cuffed her to the bedpost. She thrashed beneath him but couldn’t escape and he saw the excitement in her eyes. When he entered her, she moaned, and when she came she screamed. And then she shuddered, some kind of cross between agony and ecstasy, and she tried to throw him off her, but he hadn’t come yet, so he moved faster, and faster still, and she was screaming now, and struggling against him, almost as if, suddenly, it didn’t matter who was there with her, she just wanted it over, then he came and she screamed louder, and sobbed, a wracking sob, and then he was off her, exhausted, spent, and she lay, hands stretched back to the headboard, absolutely still, except for her chest, which was heaving up and down, and her eyes, which fluttered open and shut, until they slowly closed and stay closed, unseeing, while her breathing slowed and the violence that had possessed her body quietly disappeared.
He thought he might have hurt her or overpowered her, and he wasn’t sure what to do or say, but then her eyes opened and she smiled at him, a slow, almost shy smile which he found somehow touching after the wildness he’d just seen and felt in her. She lifted one leg up into the air, almost in slow motion, and now he finally unzipped one boot, then the other, and pulled them both off. Her calves were thick, he ran his hand over the right one. She told him dreamily that she didn’t like her calves, she thought she had football player legs, but he told her that her legs were lovely. He told her her calves were beautiful.
He went to uncuff her; in the stillness after their lovemaking he felt embarrassed that she was restrained, but she shook her head. He freed her from the bedpost but kept her wrists bound together, and she lifted her arms up over his head and around his back, drawing him to her, forcing him so close he could feel her heart beating against his chest. She was asleep instantly, drained by the outburst of passion and the emotion she’d let loose. He lay there, sweaty, breathing hard, watching her sleep, staring at her smooth, white skin. She had a small mole on her back and he gently touched it. He was glad for the mole because he thought otherwise she’d be perfect.
He reached up and softly put his palm on Reggie’s neck, leaned over and kissed the top of her head. Then Justin, too, closed his eyes, his arm curled across her back, her face buried into his chest. He drifted into sleep to the rhythm of her soft breaths warming his heart, and he didn’t wake up until he heard a stirring, a footstep on the floorboard, and when his eyes opened, there were four men, expressionless, all with short hair and all with weapons. For a moment he thought it was a dream, a 4 A.M. nightmare, but he could smell their sweat, he could feel their presence, and he began to move, only he couldn’t, because he was tangled together with Reggie, her cuffed hands wrapped around him.
Her eyes opened then, and when she stirred she saw the men. Justin saw the fear in her eyes, the panic, and she tried to claw herself away from him, but it was no good. One of the men leaned down and hit her. Justin heard the crack of fist against jaw and he saw her go slack. He still couldn’t move, not freely, but now he knew it didn’t make any difference. He was one and he was naked, and they were four and they had guns.
So all Justin could do was watch in horror and then resignation as one man raised his pistol and shot Reggie Bokkenheuser in the chest. As she toppled sideways, Justin realized he knew one of the men, recognized him, he’d been in Justin’s office. Hubbell Schrader. And it was Schrader who now looked at him, said something in that monotone they all had, all these guys. Justin didn’t hear everything that Schrader said. He just heard the words “FBI” and “enemy combatant,” and Justin started to go, “What the fuck? Enemy combatant?” but the words didn’t come out because he couldn’t speak when he got a look at Reggie, on her side, deadly still, and then Hubbell Schrader turned his gun on Justin, held it at point-blank range, and pulled the trigger.
All Justin could do was feel the darkness, the shadows that fell over him, then he rolled over, consciousness fading, and something happened that he’d wanted for a long time, for years, ever since Alicia had died, but not now, he thought, he didn’t want it now, not now, not now. But whatever he thought didn’t matter because it had finally happened: he slipped away into the blackness and felt and saw and heard nothing.
PART THREE
27
The air smelled stale.
The foul odor wafted up his nostrils, slid down his throat, and his stomach turned over. He began to gag. That’s when he understood that he was alive. In a cramped place, facedown on a floor, his face shoved down into some grungy carpet-like thing, unable to move much. But alive. His first response was surprise. Then confusion. And then Justin Westwood realized that he didn’t feel elated or even relieved. As his head slowly cleared, as his eyes began to focus, he realized that he felt resigned. Resigned that things hadn’t come to an end. Resigned to the throbbing in his temple and the empty feeling that had long ago replaced his soul. Resigned to the fact that life was going to go on. At least for a little while longer.
He struggled to turn over on his side, felt his face brush up against something. A new smell overwhelmed him. Leather. He coughed and the force from the movement made his eyes fly open. The smell of leather was coming from a shoe, just inches from his face. He heard the rustling of cloth. His vision was wavy, his senses jumbled, but it seemed like a pant leg moving. Then he heard a drone, a harsh, steady buzz. The light-it seemed to be streaming in from a window-was making him wince, but his eyes stayed open, and Justin thought,
It felt familiar. Looked familiar. His head twisted and he saw something, his brain couldn’t quite take it in, then it clicked: a large fuel tank, like the one he’d seen in the small plane that Hutchinson Cooke had died in. His head turned again and he saw the shoe move. A quick sudden movement. He anticipated the blow a moment before it happened but there was nothing he could do about it. The kick came and the pain in the side of his head was sudden and overwhelming. He had another brief wave of nausea, then there were no more smells, no more sensations, and his eyes were shut and there was only darkness again.
When Justin woke up again, the drone of the plane had disappeared. So had the stale air, replaced by the smell of dirt and humidity and sweat. His head ached, behind the eyes, from whatever drug had been used to put him out, and in his right temple, where he’d been kicked. His mouth felt dry and dusty, his tongue was coated with crust, his throat constricted. Things were quiet; he ascertained no movement around him. The sense of elation was still missing and the deep crush of resignation was overwhelming.
It was life as usual, Justin decided.
He slowly stood up, was overcome by dizziness, looked for someplace to sit back down and realized there was nothing to sit on. Only floor. He took a step toward the wall, leaned heavily against it, surveyed the room he was in. It was small, the size of a cell. The wall he was leaning against was made of stucco and he assumed the other three were the same. The front wall had a wooden door that he didn’t even bother trying. He knew it would be locked. The door had a small slat in it. The slat was shut now but Justin figured it could be opened from the outside. A way to peer in. When closed, no way to peer out. On the opposite wall, maybe eight or nine feet off the ground, was a small window. It let in just a sliver of air and sunlight, and as best as Justin could tell, there were bars across it. He looked down now. The floor was dirt. Nothing fancy about it, just hard-packed dirt.
He felt a dull pain in his chest, opened his shirt and looked down to see an ugly purplish bruise immediately below his heart. It’s where they’d shot him, using some kind of tranquilizing bullet or dart. Some sort of stun gun. He hoped it’s what they had used on Reggie. He told himself that it had to have been. It was too painful to think otherwise. He had to drive the picture of her-sprawled on the bed, turned on her side, her head thrown back, twisted in fear-out of his mind. He wondered if she were alive. If she were there or if they’d only taken him.
He turned suddenly, lurching at a noise that came in through the tiny window. A bird maybe. Or wind. Or a branch rustling against the roof. The movement made his chest hurt like hell but Justin ignored the pain. He decided
