Shadow Knight's Mate (29 page)

Jack stopped and stared blankly. As they mounted the stairs he turned and looked back at the moderately busy station. No one seemed to look back at him. Nevertheless, Jack gave his head and shoulders a paranoid duck as he went through the door.

Jack had spent the extra money for a very small private carriage. They didn't say much until the train was moving. Jack looked out the window, musing. Arden didn't know everything he had been through in the last twenty-four hours, and didn't know what he planned now. She had to ask what he was thinking.

Jack looked up at her. “You left Yvette locked in the jail.”

“We needed to distract the guard.”

“We could have knocked him unconscious, taken his gun, and brought her with us. She could have been useful.”

Arden stood up and looked back at him over her shoulder. “Oops,” she said, and went out the door of the compartment, heading for the communal bathroom.

Alicia Mortenson called Janice Gentry once Alicia and Craig were on their way. “I'm sorry, dear, that was inexcusable, the way we just walked out.”

“Thank you,” Janice agreed.

“The fact is, we didn't want to announce exactly what we're doing to everyone in the room, and to Craig and me it was obvious. You know too, don't you?”

Back at headquarters, Janice stood with the landline phone to her ear. She was exhausted, but somehow Alicia's voice conveyed energy. Janice stood up straighter. She let her mind go blank. A soft breeze seemed to blow across her face, pleasantly scented.

Eyes closed, she smiled. “Of course,” she said.

It was as if Alicia had projected an image into Janice's mind, across miles of phone line. Because Janice was certain she knew what she meant, and where the couple had gone.

“There you go, dear,” Alicia said in that voice that would have made her the greatest kindergarten teacher of all time.

“All right, well, you two be careful.”

“We will. And don't worry about the Chair, Janice. I think she may be all right. Maybe she just had to go put in an appearance at her day job. It is important to look normal.”

“Yes,” Janice said slowly, wondering if Alicia was conveying her another message and Janice wasn't getting it. She wasn't sure exactly what the eighty-seven year old Gladys Leaphorn's “day job” was. She had worked at Langley for years, as an administrative assistant on whom a series of deputy CIA chiefs had come to rely. Shortly before her retirement she had transferred out west here, to North American Defense Command. But in this crisis could she just go pop in at NORAD and say, “Hi, I think I left something in the closet”?

Well, anyway. At least she knew Alicia and Craig were safe. And what they were doing.

The Mortensons set up shop at one of their old stands in Vienna, Virginia, a very upscale suburb of D.C. A million-dollar home in this neighborhood was mid-size. Nice but nothing fancy. They stayed in one such, the vacation home of an old friend who was staying huddled in California until someone explained what was happening now. Then the Mortensons started placing phone calls to friends and acquaintances, most of whom sounded glad to hear from them. The Mortensons were listening for the sound of someone who was not.

Craig managed to reach Don Trimble, but it took a while. “How are things in Salzburg?”

“Ominously quiet,” Trimble answered. “Huge security apparatus, of course, but not much trust among the various groups, so they're overlapping and leaving gaps.”

“Seen anyone we know?” Craig meant other Circle members, perhaps of the European branches. They would seem inevitably drawn to the city that was soon to be the political center of Earth.

“A few acquaintances, no one who seems to have a clue.”

“Jack?”

“No. Have any of you heard from him?”

“I don't think so. We're temporarily away from headquarters.”

“You are?” Trimble said quickly. Craig frowned at Alicia. She frowned back as if she had heard not only the whole conversation but also what her husband was thinking. “Where are you?” Trimble asked.

Alicia shook her head at Craig, which was hardly necessary. “California,” Craig said. “Thinking about hopping to Malaysia. I think maybe Jack was up to more there than he let on.”

“Good idea,” Trimble said. “But everyone else is still at headquarters, aren't they?”

“Most all.”

They ended the call a few minutes later without chitchat or farewells. Alicia said immediately, “What's wrong?”

“I don't know. Next time you call him and listen to his voice. He just seemed a little too anxious to know where everyone is. And he had absolutely nothing useful to tell me even though he's at ground zero on the scene.”

“Maybe he just hasn't learned anything. I never did think Don was the fastest horse in the stable.”

Craig laughed. “Or maybe there's nothing to learn there.” He looked at his dead cell phone. “Damn it, Don, that was badly played. You should have given me something, something to let me know you're still on the team.”

Alicia said, without conviction, “Maybe he was being overheard.”

Craig took her hand and gave it a quick kiss. “I'm going to lunch with the Russian ambassador. You?”

“Just some shopping.”

He looked at her sharply. Alicia smiled. “With the Secretary of State's mistress.”

They parted without goodbyes or backward glances. They were so close they didn't even feel apart when they weren't together. They almost thought with the same mind. But unfortunately they didn't share eyes.

About 10 p.m. a porter came by and made the small train compartment into two beds, one above and one below. Jack and Arden stood in the narrow corridor looking at each other while he worked, neither of them speaking. They had had a hectic, exhilarating hour before boarding the train, but before that they had just sat in a cell for hours. Neither was physically tired. They were very keyed up, and not just from fear of pursuit. Jack's eyes stayed on her face. Arden looked very young, only tracings of lines beginning around her eyes. Her blue eyes took him in, absorbed him, drew him in to her. He wondered what she was seeing. He felt so much older than he had a month ago. Old and suspicious. She looked at him with what he should have known was affection, but he didn't trust her at all. Couldn't. His body did, though. He found himself drawing closer to her.

The porter coughed discreetly, moving between them and out of the way. Jack tipped him a bill without looking at it, probably way too much, from the way the porter chuckled. Or maybe that was just from looking at the two of them.

Arden swallowed. He could see her throat move. “I'm going for a walk,” she said.

“Good idea.” He stopped swaying toward her.

She took off, moving briskly and swinging her arms. Jack got undressed, mostly. His overnight bag hadn't contained pajamas for either of them. He turned on the small light at the head of the bed and tried to read the one paperback in English he'd found left on the train, a Danielle Steele novel. He had already read enough to understand why someone had left it behind, but there was nothing else to do. Soon he came to a love scene, put the book aside, turned off his light, put his hands behind his head, and looked out the window. France flashed by, dim and smeared by speed. Farmland, widely scattered houses. Like all lonely people, Jack imagined that the people inside those houses were happy. Tired from honest labor, ignorant of sinister forces at work in the world, unconcerned about anything larger than produce prices. So he imagined, and he envied them.

He wished he were back in school, so he could talk to Stevie or Rachel. Jack smiled wryly in the darkness. Sharing his dilemma over another woman with Rachel would be a complicated business, but that was part of the fun.

He wondered what time it was in his home town, what his parents and brother and sisters were doing. His mother would be worried about him, and rightfully so, but her voice wouldn't show it when he called her first thing the next morning.

The door of their compartment slid open. Arden stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. She didn't speak. There was only a very narrow space between the door and the bunks, perhaps two feet. Arden stepped out of her flat shoes, slipped them to the side. She wore a pleated skirt and a thin sweater with three-quarter sleeves. After a moment she slipped off the skirt, opened the very narrow closet door, and hung it inside. Then she lifted
off the sweater, slowly, standing there for a long moment with the sweater around her head while she pulled her arms out. Then she pulled her head free, folded the sweater, and put it on a shelf. The closet door closed with a click that was loud in the silent room.

Arden wore a bra and panties, and Jack couldn't tell anything about their material in the dimness, but they looked filmy. Some moonlight came through the uncurtained window, enough for him to see well, but then he'd been lying in the darkness for a while. Arden must not be able to see at all. Maybe she thought he was already asleep.

He could swear she was looking at him, though. He saw her eyes.

She reached behind her and the bra fell to the floor. She cupped her breasts, which were not large but well-shaped and gravity-resistant. She moved her thumbs along their undersides. When she moved her hands away her nipples were alert.

Jack was sure then that she knew he was watching. He didn't know whether to move or cough or applaud. Very deliberately, Arden hooked her thumbs in the panties, bent at the waist, and pulled them down her legs. As she straightened up she ran her hands up her thighs.

Then she stood for a long moment, palms on her thighs, very pale in the moonlight. He couldn't see any tan lines. Jack sat up slightly, resting his head on his hand, and just stared. She apparently wanted to be seen, and he wanted to see. God, it was going to be hard to sleep after this.

Very deliberately then, Arden hooked her thumbs in her panties and snapped the waistband. Then she looked toward him in the darkness and said, “How long are you going to pretend to be asleep?”

“I'm not. I'm lying here watching you.”

He could have sworn she hesitated then. As she did, he moved out of bed and stood in front of her, inches apart. He reached out to the left, the length of his arm, and opened the shades. Moonlight flooded the compartment, seeming very bright. She wouldn't look up until he lifted her chin, then her eyes shone.

They interrupted each other with his saying, “May I—?” and Arden saying, “Would you like—?” Then Jack just nodded, kept looking into her eyes, stepped forward, and put his mouth on hers.

“Hmmph,” she said some time later. By then her arms were around his neck, his around her waist.

“Yes,” he said. “Arden? Do you really—?” She stopped him with her mouth on his. Also by pulling down his briefs. “My,” she said, reaching down.

The train made it perfect. There was that steady rhythm under them. They joined it, first standing then in the bunk. By then they could both see clearly by the shifting moonlight through the window. Jack looked down at her and she covered herself modestly for a moment. Was it mocking? He didn't know. But when he pulled her arms down she didn't resist.

She pushed him back on the bunk, or possibly he pulled her, but in any event he was on his back, she on top of him, looking into each other's eyes. This time he didn't speak, just widened his eyes. She nodded.

Entry was slow, then quick. She made an intake of breath that seemed very loud in the cabin, except it was matched by his. Then they locked eyes again. Then they began moving.

“Oh God,” she said, some time later. Jack stroked her hair and just nodded against her bare shoulder, her nipple indenting his chest. “Are you—?” he began, then they both fell instantly asleep, but that kind of sleep where each was aware of the other all the time, their hands stroking each other. Some time in the night they half-woke at the same time and tried again. It was better, or just as good, which was just as good. They ended up staring into each other's eyes until they began blinking and nodded off again.

The miles rolled by.

The library clerk in the American embassy in Munich said to the ambassador's secretary, “I've got to go home, Alice. I've got a headache.”

The thin, efficient, middle-aged lady looked up sympathetically and said, “One of your bad ones?”

The clerk nodded. He was a heavy man, which, with his shaved head, made his age hard to determine.

“Well, it's pretty dead here. All the activity is shifting to Salzburg. You take care of yourself, Bruno.”

“Thank you, Alice.” He liked her, which was one reason why he was leaving this place.

Bruno walked out of the embassy for the last time, walking almost on tiptoe, like a man trying to minimize pain, and didn't stop the act even when he was outside. He eased into his car, a Volkswagen Jetta that was almost too small for him. Then Bruno Benjamin drove away, but only a few blocks.