Unacceptable Risk (39 page)

She had never been to the Tiloks' Universe Rock, and nothing in her family's Catholic past had ever melded with her soul. The Catholic tradition was barren for her, perhaps because at age twelve she had been required to attend as a means of occupying her time. But in her childhood there had been a beautiful valley down which the Loire River flowed. An old orchard grew there. It was quiet and fragrant in summer and near the castle of Villandry. Although Benoit knew the castle had been built by a sixteenth-century finance minister, she imagined that royalty would have taken picnics in the nearby orchard and perhaps fallen in love there.

Spring had asked if she could visualize it to the point that she could feel the experience of it, and she had said she could. Once she felt the peace of that valley, she was told to remember the eyes of her mother in a close moment. Even though her mother died when Benoit was nine years old, there were many such moments with her mother and she could place herself back in those times. Spring told her that if she could concentrate totally on the peace of that valley, and if she could remember the eyes of her mother and feel that love, then that was the beginning of her
we pac maw.
As she learned to explore it, she could take in more than her valley and more than her mother. She could eventually take in all valleys and all mothers, and she could be at peace in the gravest adversity. Spring told her that when the threat was the greatest, she could become the center of a sphere of that energy so that she could be surrounded with her
we pac maw.

This was the beginning of Tilok meditation for the sweat lodge as taught by the Spirit Walkers of the Tilok tribe and now the
Talths,
since Sam's grandfather had been the last Spirit Walker. Benoit wondered whether, after prison, she needed such gimmicks to survive the coming experience with Gaudet. Sam swore to her that the Spirit Walker meditation was sufficiently powerful that she might survive, even prevail over, a man like Devan Gaudet.

A year before, Benoit would have instantly dismissed this exercise as the purest form of religious bullshit. Then she had begun examining her life and its value. She had explained her inner pilgrimage to Sam and he seemed to understand—at least to the extent that he believed her.

Although engrossed in her meditation, she was aware that there were about twenty minutes of jostling of the crate and then about a forty-minute ride in a truck, followed by another twenty minutes of jostling before it seemed that she had arrived. She could tell by the talking and the work on the top of the crate that she was about to be let out. When she climbed out, she saw small glass panes, dark woods, and older but elegant-looking draperies. She was obviously in an upper range courtly hotel with old world styling. There was a man beside the crate who had the appearance of age.

"Is that you, Devan?"

He nodded. "You will recognize my voice, as well as my eyes."

When she climbed down from the crate, she pressed herself to him without hesitation and gently stuck her tongue in his mouth, being careful not to kiss vigorously in order to ensure that she did not disturb his makeup. She put her loins to his as she had commonly done more than a year previous. But Sam's cautions were heavy on her mind.

Don't compromise yourself. Try everything else and something will break.

Still, it was hard not to slip back into ways that would make Gaudet comfortable, put him at ease, and then fill him with desire so that she could begin to persuade him, and to loosen him up. It was hard to be a butterfly.

"God, I missed you so."

"You were never this enthusiastic," he said when she let him up for air.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"So does abstinence."

"I can't believe that you involved yourself in this charade."

"Occasionally I'm like one of those gamblers that can't resist a chance. Besides, I never really taught you disguise well enough that I could be sure that you would do it to my satisfaction. We have to work fast."

Gaudet went to work laying out a silver gray wig, makeup, glasses, and a change of clothes.

"Where are we going?"

"To what they call upstate, the forests, there is a lake.... We have a little time." She could sense his eagerness for intimacy and his weird kind of sex.

"Devan, there is something I want more than anything. Temporarily I want it even more than I want you." Gaudet stopped with the hairpiece.

"What is that?"

She tried to draw herself into the peace of her
we pac maw.
"I want real freedom. I want a pardon from the French government."

"Trust a government?"

"I'm not like you, you know. I can't run from the law my whole life. If it means being pardoned, then, yes, I'll trust them. But not blindly."

"You can't run with me like we planned?" There was just a hint of irritation in his voice and it gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She found herself losing her confidence and she wanted to be intimate with him as a means of reclaiming it.
Don't compromise. Keep trying.
She could feel the tension of the great inner struggle over going the old way or trying the new.

"Being with you isn't the problem. It's being hunted by France. I want to be able to walk around downtown Paris without fear and without a disguise. I can have both."

"It sounds like a fairy tale to me."

"I have to try. I can have Chaperone to you the moment after we pay for it. You can then deliver it to the French along with your technology. I can get Bowden's journal, the one that identifies the source of Chaperone—and the location. That is the whole pie. For that, the French will pay you the two hundred million, less the kickback."

"You brought the Chaperone formula with you?"

"No, but I can get it quickly. It'll take money, though. Same with Bowden's journal. This will all be done through the Swiss escrow."

Gaudet did not disguise his surprise.

"Just like that?" He snapped his fingers. "You were with Raval no more than a couple of days. Now he's yours? Did you have sex with him? And what about Bowden?"

"No to both. But I hinted there might be some in the future."

"Would you enjoy it?"

"No. Of course not. This is a job." She could not read him now. Sometimes reaching him was like trying to climb a glass wall. "Perhaps you do not need to wait long to close. How soon can you have Cordyceps ready?"

"Before, I thought you said it would take a little time to get Chaperone, to make deals with Raval and Bowden. I thought you and I would have a brief respite in the country. A couple of days, just you and me."

"I am very anxious. I admit it. I cannot relax."

"You are like my investors. Always in a hurry. Don't worry: my people are preparing Cordyceps."

"It's the tension—I find it suffocating."

"I find you enchanting." His eyes changed, grew harder. "Why don't you want to fuck me?"

"My period. It just began. Now isn't the time for making love, Devan. Let's get this deal done."

"I don't know if I believe you. I can feel you, Benoit. I don't think your body ever really craved mine. It was the scare, the thrill, the power that you liked in me. I represented a way to escape Chellis." He paused and studied her. "Now you have escaped Chellis and it is the French government you must escape. So back you come." She felt him studying her more than at any time in her life. But she had to pull it off. "Tell me, how is it that you can bet in the markets on Cordyceps and still get a pardon?"

"I have the French government involved at the highest levels. I can twist off their balls if they betray me."

"Not if they kill you."

"They won't. They fear nothing more than scandal, and they're too far in with me already. They'll hunker down and say nothing. Mark my words. I know our brethren."

"They are your brethren. I was nationalized by birth, not genetics. What is your plan?" Gaudet asked.

"When you are ready, I will give you Chaperone and you pay Georges Raval two million dollars. Bowden another two million."

"I can see Bowden. Without him nobody makes more Chaperone. For that, he's cheap. But Raval doesn't own anything. Why two for him?"

"They've met, Bowden and Raval, so now they are more or less together. Each wants what the other gets. It's human nature. And remember: Bowden doesn't own the Chaperone molecule itself. He knows the source, which is critical, but Chaperone has to be synthesized and you have to know how to use it—the process. That's Raval's piece. No one else understands it, even the French. They own the process but don't know how it works. You see?"

"Somehow it seems a little too simple, but I'm listening. What does Bowden guarantee? What does Raval guarantee?"

"That's a snag. Bowden guarantees nothing, because he says he doesn't know for sure which material the molecule came from. I can get his 1998 journal, Devan."

"Does he guarantee the journal?"

"No. Georges says the molecule came from a salamander. I will obtain the salamander journal page. You and I will guarantee the journal."

"The French will accept this?"

"Probably. Raval guarantees that the official Chaperone documents from Grace Technologies files will be delivered to escrow. Part of the deal with the French is for Raval—they get both unquestionable legal title and the secret to Chaperone technology; he goes to work in their laboratories at agreed terms. Part of those terms is the two million, which you are to pay to him. But it is peanuts compared to the two hundred million and the way that will be multiplied in the markets with Cordyceps. Now I still have to work out the other terms of the employment contract for Raval. I plan to finish it quickly, in the next couple of days."

"I will say this, Benoit, you seem to have all the angles figured for everybody."

She could see that he was getting restless. Something was bothering him. A lesson from Catholic school came to her:
what fellowship has the darkness with the light?

"You don't want to go with me," he said. "Do you?" "Of course I do. But I have work to do. I can't go off to the country in the middle of a job that will determine my whole life—my freedom. I have many things to work out." "So you say. Your period never stopped us before." She said nothing for a moment, working on the tears she'd need for the next step in her explanation. "I did not want to tell you this, but... I was raped by a guard in jail. Thank God I'm not pregnant. My period proves that. But it's been awful. I am afraid I may have caught something. If I did, then my blood could infect you. It's a dangerous time, my period. I would not hide that from you."

Gaudet's eyes widened. His fastidious nature seemed to appreciate the threat. "What did the guard have?" "Hepatitis for certain. Hopefully, not AIDS." "I can't believe a guard raped Benoit Moreau." "Actually, it was two guards. They handcuffed me to a bed, feet and hands."

Gaudet studied her. He reached into the pocket of his slacks. It was the right pocket where he kept the knife. When he displayed the pearl-handled instrument, it did not surprise her. With a flick of his wrist he snapped it open. He walked forward and held it under her chin, the way he used to do in sex play. But his eyes were hard and unwavering. She felt weakness in her knees, remembering the stories she had heard of the disemboweled enemies of Gaudet. Most recently it had been one of Sam's men. More than one woman had been cut in the face.

As if daring her to do something, he began to cut the buttons down the front of her dress. Quickly she reached under her dress, pulled aside the crotch of her panties, and withdrew her bloody tampon. She held it in front of his face and stood very still, not wanting to trigger him into a bloodletting.

A smile broke across his lips. "I was sure you were lying about your period. When will it end?"

"Four, five days."

"One can be vaccinated against hepatitis. I myself have received the vaccine because of my travels. But AIDS ..."

"I know. I'm scared, Devan. And I'm sorry."

"You make it difficult. I want to see you in five days."

"Good. Me too. By which time the deal will be done. All except for Cordyceps."

"I will wait five days from the sale of Chaperone to implement Cordyceps and no more. When is the soonest you can deliver Chaperone?"

"Tomorrow, if I go back immediately. I need to be with Raval when you deliver the money."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I have never failed you. And because I am too smart to cross you. Raval will deposit into escrow, as will you, and as will the French. Nobody has to trust anybody."