The Warrior (25 page)
Authors: Sharon Sala
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked, thinking about how ill she'd been just a short time ago.
“I'm fine. It's just that I didn't sleep so well, remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” he said. “Go to sleep, then. I won't be far.”
She nodded, gave him a last, lingering look of what he read as regret, and then left him alone with a kitchen full of dirty dishes.
He sighed, surveying the mess, then began to clean up in a slow, methodical way. Once he was done, he went to check on her. She was rolled up in a ball on top of her bedspread. The air in the room was cool from the central air-conditioning. He covered her with an afghan
and then made himself walk out instead of crawling in beneath the covers with her.
There was still the issue of setting a trap.
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Richard zipped his suitcase shut, patted his pocket to make sure he had his papers, grabbed the bag and headed down the stairs. Helga was waiting below with his hat and coat. He put on the hat, then let her help him into the coat before heading for the front door.
“I'll be in touch,” he said. “Just carry on with business as usual.”
“We will take good care of everything, Herr Schloss. Have a safe trip.”
“Yes, thank you,” Richard said, knowing that when he came back the next time, he would have undergone yet another physical change. But this one would be permanent.
He nodded once more to the maid, then stepped aside as she opened the door for him.
Gustav was outside, waiting beside the car. He loaded the suitcase, then opened the door for his boss.
“We still have plenty of time to make your flight,” Gustav said.
“Yes, but I don't like to arrive late,” Richard said, then got in and settled comfortably into the backseat as Gustav got behind the wheel.
They drove to the airport without conversation, as was proper between a boss and employee. Upon arrival, Gustav carried Richard's suitcase to the curb.
“I'll call when I'm heading back so you can pick me up,” Richard said.
“Yes, sir, and do have a safe trip.”
Richard nodded, then headed for the gate. Within
the hour, the plane had begun to board. He made it through every security checkpoint without a hitch. By the time he was in his assigned seat in first class, he was riding a high at how easy it was to deceive.
The plane took off without incident, and before long, Richard was being served hot coffee and reading the international edition of the
New York Times,
which he'd purchased in the airport.
The headline and accompanying story were somewhat startling. Seeing not only his own face but his friend Jacob's picture, as well, only reinforced what he was planning to do. He couldn't believe how easily his world of privilege and power had toppled. It seemed impossible to believe that this time last week, he and Jacob were sharing a drink in his office, and now Jacob was dead by his own hand, and Richard was halfway across the world and on the run.
The approaching flight attendant caught his focus, but only for a moment.
“Would you care for more coffee?” she asked.
He nodded, smiling cordially as she topped off his cup and then moved along. He let the coffee cool as he continued to read. By the time he'd finished the article, the coffee was cool enough to drink. The dark, bitter German coffee was an acquired taste, but one he knew he was going to have to get used to.
When the attendant came back by, Richard stopped her.
“When do we land in Lucerne?” he asked.
“In about two hours,” she said as she retrieved his empty cup.
“Thank you,” he said, then laid the paper aside, leaned his seat back, closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.
The snow was coming down thick and heavy. The flakes were huge, like down from a duck's back, but coldâso cold. Blood was oozing from both ears and from the corner of his mouth, and when he inhaled, the sound was like a rattle. He could feel the life force seeping out of him with every breath he took. He was going to die.
Just like before.
The memories were vague, but he knew, as well as he knew his own face that they were real. In other lifetimes, he kept dying early, always within sight of achieving greatness, yet failing at the hands of fate or the hands of those he should have been able to trust.
This time, it was the weather and twelve broken bones that were going to take him out. He was afraid. So very afraid.
“Don't leave me,” he pleaded from inside his small tent, reaching out to the others, who had shifted their packs to accommodate what he'd been carrying.
“We'll send help,” someone said, and then they were gone.
The others walked past his tiny tent without looking backâunable to look at the man they were leaving to die alone. But the leader, Trevor, stopped and squatted down and peered into the opening.
“Trevor, I thought you were my friend.”
But Trevor just shook his head. “I am your friend, but I'm not God, and He's the only One who could fix what's wrong with you. You're all broken up inside, and you know it.”
He choked, then exhaled, bringing up a fresh stream of blood that oozed from between his lips and down onto the sleeping bag they'd put him in.
They'd had no choiceâand he'd taken the risk when he'd decided to attempt the climb. Everest was the Holy Grail of mountains. He'd come so close to achieving greatness. Now all was lost because of one misstep and a snowstorm.
“Don't leave me,” he said again, but this time the words were sucked up and blown away by the wind.
“Sorry,” Trevor said. “Maybe in another lifetime, my friend.”
He watched in horror as Trevor walked away, disappearing into the blowing wall of snow.
“No!” he screamed, then shuddered as a wave of unbearable pain shot through him like a bolt of lightning.
Once again he had been abandoned to his fate by people he'd believed he could trust.
Richard sat up with a gasp. His heart was thumping erratically, and he had the strangest urge to see if he could standâbut of course it was only a dream. His bones weren't broken. His body was solid and unharmed. Still, he shuddered. The dream had seemed so real.
A little nauseated, he leaned against the headrest and quietly closed his eyes. He'd had similar dreams his whole life, the theme always the same. He was teetering on the brink of greatness, only to fall short of his goal. And always he was defeated by those he'd thought he could trust.
Then the cabin light came on, and Richard heard
the flight attendant readying the passengers for landing. He smiled with satisfaction, more than ready for what lay ahead.
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While Alicia slept, John spent the next few hours setting up an undetectable series of alarms. He positioned tiny solar-powered lasers that, when tripped by someone passing in front of the beam, would set off a small alarm inside John's bedroom. There would be no way for anyone to sneak up on the property undetected.
He had toyed with the idea of packing Alicia up and running again, but from the way things were going, there didn't seem to be a way to hide without being found. The bottom line was, Alicia was never going to be safe as long as her father was on the run.
He'd promised to help, and that meant keeping her alive in the process. He wouldn't let himself think of the consequences of putting Alicia and the nation's needs ahead of his own. He was weary of the passage of time, and the constant and fruitless hunt. He wanted it over. But once again, it seemed as if the man he sought might die at the hands of others, which did him no good whatsoever.
Finally he was satisfied that he'd done all he could with regard to security. He gathered up his tools and put them back in the storage shed, then retrieved the binoculars and circled the house, doing a 360-check of the horizon.
He was going up the steps of the back terrace when he caught a flash of light from the corner of his eye. He turned toward the distant mountains and watched, checking to see if it happened again or if it was just an anomaly. His curiosity was soon rewarded by a second
flash, like sunlight reflecting off the windshield of a carâor a pair of binoculars. The only thing was, there were no other houses in that direction. No roads leading to Sedona. No reason for anyone to be out thereâunless they didn't want to be seen.
“Soâ¦you're a little ahead of schedule,” he said softly. “But take your time. When you get here, I'll be waiting.”
“Who are you talking to?” Alicia asked.
John jumped, startled by the unexpected sound of her voice,
“Hey,” he said. “I didn't know you were awake. Feel better?”
“Yes, thanks. Soâ¦who were you talking to?”
He glanced toward the mountains. Whoever was out there had moved.
“Just talking to myself. Comes from living alone.”
Alicia shaded her eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun for a better look at his face. He was the epitome of stoic. Hard to read. Even harder to communicate with.
“Why do you?” she asked.
John frowned. “Do what?”
“Live alone.”
He shrugged. “Because it suits me, I guess.”
“I don't mean to pryâ¦but how long has it been sinceâ¦I mean, when was your family⦔ She sighed. “Crap. Forget it. That's prying. I'm sorry.”
She strode back into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.
John looked toward the mountains. Nothing would happen until after dark, of that he was certain. Whoever was coming would want the element of surprise on his side, and there was no way in hell to come up on this
house in daylight and not be seen from miles away. Satisfied that he had some time before all hell broke loose, he followed her inside.
She was taking a cold can of pop from the refrigerator.
“Want one?” she asked.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, and set his binoculars on the counter.
Alicia eyed them as she poured the soda into glasses, then added some ice. She set one glass in front of him, then took hers to the table. She sat down, took a sip and then pointed to the binoculars.
“What aren't you telling me?”
John's eyes narrowed as he took the chair across from her. He wasn't fooling her one bit.
“That plane today⦔
“They were looking for meâ¦for
us,
weren't they?”
“I think so.”
“What did you see out there just now?”
“Sunlight reflecting off something shiny, most likely glass.”
“Maybe it was just a car on the road.”
“There are no roads out there. There are no houses. Nothing leads to anything out there.”
Her bandaged fingers curled around the glass. She was afraid to ask but needed to know.
“Was Dieter in that plane?”
“No. I didn't recognize either of them, but that means nothing. We didn't know the man who came at you in D.C., either, but he still found us.”
“What's going to happen? Are we leaving here?”
“I thought about it,” John said. “My instinct is to stay and fight.”
She leaned back in her chair and let her gaze slide from feature to feature on his face. From that tiny silver feather in his ear to the jut of his chin, the high, chiseled cheekbones and those dark, flashing eyes. He didn't look like a man accustomed to backing down.
“I don't want to be responsible for your death,” she said.
The urge to confess was strong. But how did a man admit he couldn't die and not sound like a madman? She was already scared half out of her head. He didn't want to push her the rest of the way.
“I've been around a very long time and survived some ugly stuff. I'm a hard man to kill.”
She shivered, remembering the scars on his body and the way the gunshot wounds had closed up almost before her eyes.
“I've thought about that a lot,” she said.
He grinned wryly. “I can imagine.”
“So how do you do it, John? How does your bodyâ¦you know⦔
“I told someone once that I'd studied healing under the Dali Lama. Learned how to heal myself, how to control bleeding.”
“Did that someone believe you?” she asked.
“I guess. The conversation ended.”
She slid her glass around and around in a little circle on the table, leaving wet rings of condensation behind, then paused and looked John straight in the face.