Ghost Dance Page 14

  "You reading me, guys?" Curtis's voice said sharply in her ear.

  "Yeah," PD said. "What's up?"

  "The guard and the cook have gone out to the yard. Downstairs is clear for the moment - you probably won't get a better opportunity."

  Alex grimaced at the unmeant truth. This was it, her chance to break free. She thought about the way PD had touched and spoken to her and almost didn't do it. But then she thought about this morning, the way he's pulled away from her as if she was an embarrassment to him. And she thought about the figure on the bed, the form she could still see writhing and which she knew was destined to haunt her dreams. If she didn't escape, there'd be more sights like that, day after day, until she became so hardened to them she stopped caring. Or until they broke her mind entirely.

  That's what PD was condemning her to.

  "Let's go," she said to him. "The study's near the lobby. I didn't get a chance to search it before, but I... sensed something."

  He nodded and led the way back to the first floor. She watched his back as he walked, trying to think about nothing, concentrating on her breathing.

  "Which way?" he asked.

  "Next door on the left," she said.

  He went in ahead of her as she loitered in the doorway, gathering her nerve.

  "We need to be careful, kid," he said. "When you look at stuff make sure you don't move it. They can't know we've been here."

  She nodded, not trusting her voice. He turned his back on her to open the filing cabinet and she knew she needed to do it right then.

  The door creaked as it swung shut and he must have spun to face her. She thought she caught a brief glimpse of his startled face. And then the door was shut and the key felt awkward in her hand as she turned it in the lock. The doorknob rattled and she heard PD calling out to her.

  "Christ!" she said into her mic. "What the hell's going on, Curtis? They've trapped PD, they're after me. Jesus - I thought you were going to keep us safe!" She made her breathing ragged as she walked calmly down the corridor towards the basement.

  "What?" Curtis said. "I see nothing - surveillance footage is all clear."

  "The surveillance footage is bullshit!" Alex said. "Oh Christ, they're coming. They're-" She tore the mic from her throat and stamped on it, then did the same with her earpiece. When she was confident she couldn't be heard, she pulled out her phone and redialled the last number. Her hand was shaking so hard she had to try twice before it connected.

  "Bayview Bistro," said a female voice. "How may I help you?"

  "I'm trying to get hold of Jeremiah," Alex said. "There's a family emergency. Can he come to the phone?"

  "Of course," the woman said. "May I tell him who's calling."

  "Tell him it's Maria Vargas."

  She heard the clunk of the phone being put on a wooden surface and then the ambient sounds of a busy restaurant for several long, tense seconds. She could hear PD too, banging on the door at the end of the corridor, and she debated just leaving him there. The cook or the guard might find him.

  But PD was a trained agent. Two civilians would be unlikely to hold him for long, and she needed him out of action for at least a day. Long enough for her to collect the money and cross the border into Mexico.

  Then she heard the clatter of the phone being picked back up, and a male voice saying. "Maria?"

  Alex hesitated only a moment. "Actually, it's not. It's the woman you tried to kidnap last night, but you're going to want to hear this anyway. There's an intruder in Jacob Marriott's house on Alamo Square. A CIA agent. He's locked in the study right now, but if you don't send someone to deal with him, he's going to be escaping with some fabulous intel to share with his bosses. Just thought you might like to know."

  Jeremiah inhaled a shocked breath. "Wait a minute! Why the hell should I believe-"

  "Your choice," she said. "But what have you got to lose by checking?"

  She ended the call. Either he'd act on her words or he wouldn't. There was nothing more she could say to convince him.

  She didn't have Curtis to guide her through this time. Without the other woman to switch off the surveillance she was bound to be seen. She needed the alarm raised, but she wanted to be clear first. The cook and the guard were no match for PD. They might be a match for her.

  The basement steps seemed very far away. Her pace picked up to a half jog and her shoulders twitched with the urge to look behind her, but she didn't give in. There was only one way out and she had to take it. If someone was following her, that just added to the urgency.

  The shout came as she wrenched open the basement door, deep and male. She flung herself down the stairs, almost tripping as she took them two at a time. The guard's heavier tread pounded behind her, gaining. Then it slowed, and she felt a moment of relief - until the sharp crack of a gunshot deafened her.

  For a moment she was only shocked. Then she felt a trickle of blood down her left cheek and a moment later a stinging pain.

  Someone's shooting at me, she thought, the idea almost inconceivable. I've been shot.

  The sting deepened to a burning throb as she fled down the stairs. She stumbled at the bottom, falling to her knees on the concrete floor. The impact jarred her knees, but it saved her life. The second bullet passed above her. She saw the wood of the door ahead splinter as it hit.

  The thought of standing and running terrified her. She knew there would be more bullets. How could the guard miss again? But he'd kill her for certain if she stayed where she was. Her knees screamed as she pushed herself to her feet and there was another shot and another liquid gush and flare of pain in her side. And then she was running and her heartbeat was pounding so loudly in her ears it was all she could hear.

  A bullet ploughed into the door as she reached for it. Splinters arced out, scoring scratches in her hand and arm. She gritted her teeth and turned the knob. The door opened and she threw herself out as a fist-shaped hole punched through it inches from her hand.

  She sprinted towards the back fence, legs catching on and upending a planter. The rich smell of peat enveloped her as she heard footsteps behind her. The fence was only feet away. It was solid wood, thinner in the spirit world but still there.

  She shut her eyes, lowered her head and ran on. In the second before she reached the fence she felt a light touch between her shoulder blades, and though she couldn't see him, she knew that it was Raven guiding her. And then she felt an impact that was more psychic than physical. The shock of it made her open her eyes and she saw that she was through. A different, smaller garden lay ahead of her and an unlocked side entrance that would take her to the street.

  She spun, gasping for breath, to look at the fence behind her. She wasn't sure what she expected. Maybe the outline of her body, like in a cartoon. But the fence was whole. There was no sign that she'd passed right through it. And from the other side, she could hear the confused, fearful yells of the man who'd been shooting at her.

  He didn't know where she'd gone. Neither did Curtis - or Hammond. She was free.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Morgan knew he was drowning. He felt sleepy, almost happy, as he drifted down to rest on the muddy river bottom. His lungs were filled with water and there must be a knife deep in his chest, though he couldn't feel the pain of it.

  His vision was distorting. The water seemed to swirl with hidden shapes and forms. He thought he saw a little girl's face, his sister's. She smiled at him and he tried to smile back. He saw her hand move, the small, blunt fingers reaching for him, and he thought he felt the brush of them against his arm. She was frowning, as if there was something she wanted him to understand. But his mind was drifting with the current and he couldn't fathom what she wanted.

  Then the sight of her face was fading, lost behind red flames. And suddenly there was pain, blooming in every cell of his body until he opened his mouth wide in a scream. He knew that it must be water rushing to fill it - in some corner of his mind he still understood that he was drowning - but the wate
r felt like burning pitch pouring down his throat and into his lungs.

  When he felt another, firmer grasp on his forearm, he thought for a second that it was his sister, come to rescue him from this agony. But the grip was harsh and unforgiving and as it tugged him to the surface he caught a glimpse of a hard, dark face. Then everything faded to black.

  He came to coughing as something pressed too hard against his chest and a gush of river water and saliva slicked down his chin and onto his neck. He rolled to his side, retching, bringing up nothing but bile.

  After a moment, he became aware of a warm hand on his back and another supporting his head. He squirmed away from them both and pushed himself to a sitting position, though his body felt boneless and badly put together.

  His rescuer stared back at him through one fierce red-brown eye and another swollen almost shut. The Israeli looked like an ordinary man, but if Coby hadn't lied he could be a lot more.

  "Lahav." Morgan scrabbled at his waist for a weapon he didn't have. He wasn't even clothed, still wearing only his boxers.

  "I saved your life," Lahav said. "I'm not going to kill you now."

  Morgan blinked his eyes clear of the water dripping from his hair and looked around. They were still outdoors. He could smell the crushed grass beneath where he lay, and the sky above was almost obscured by a canopy of leaves. They were hidden from sight, but Lahav couldn't have moved him far. He'd been near death when he was pulled from the river. The Mossad agent had only had a few minutes in which he could revive him.

  Except Morgan shouldn't have been alive at all. He groped at his chest, feeling for the knife wound that should have pierced it, mentally groping for the pain that should have accompanied it, but there was no wound and no pain.

  "Why?" Morgan asked. "Why kill me then save me?"

  Lahav grimaced. "I wasn't aiming for you. I wanted to kill the other, the American. He put you in the path of my dagger."

  It was true. And Lahav had run away rather than fight him before - but it didn't matter. Lahav might not want to hurt Morgan but Morgan sure as hell wanted to hurt him.

  "Tell me why I shouldn't turn you in to the police," Morgan said.

  "Because you're weak right at this moment, and I will kill you before you run five feet."

  "You said you didn't want to kill me."

  Lahav shrugged. "But I will if I have to."

  "The police will be here soon anyway," Morgan said.

  "Yes, and your Hermetic Division with them. You haven't been inconspicuous, Morgan. So we have not so much time to decide what to do."

  Morgan tried to push himself upright, only to collapse back to the ground as another coughing fit shook him. His lungs felt like they were full of razor blades and he wondered what diseases he'd caught from the unclean water.

  It didn't matter. He'd failed. Coby had turned on him, as he'd guessed he might. Morgan had been prepared to risk that to get the information he wanted, but now he had it, it meant nothing to him. And the only people who might have helped him understand it were the ones he'd betrayed to gain it.

  Still, they didn't know that. He could claim to have done what he did in order to find the mirror for the Division before Lahav laid his hands on it. And if Lahav came as part of the package - captured or dead - it would be even better.

  The other man wasn't expecting the attack. His hard face looked briefly shocked, and then Morgan was over him, legs pinning his to the ground, one arm holding Lahav's above his head and the other over his throat, pressing the life out of it.

  "If you kill me," Lahav rasped, "you'll never know."

  Morgan knew he should just press harder until the other man couldn't speak at all. But he found himself releasing the pressure. "Know what?" he said.

  Lahav's smile looked ghastly in his battered face. "How to find what it is that you're missing. How to be whole."

  Morgan's breath left his body in a whoosh, as if he was the one being strangled. He remembered the sensation of drowning, which had felt like burning. "What do you mean?" he asked, hating how weak his voice sounded.

  Lahav knew he'd won. Morgan could see it in his face. "There is no soul in you, my friend. It's why the dead are drawn to you. There is a void inside, and nature abhors a vacuum. People tell you and tell you but you don't want to believe. Believe now. And believe this. The One I work for can give you what you want."

  Morgan released him. He half expected Lahav to attack immediately, but the other man just rolled to his feet, groaning. "Why, though?" Morgan said. "You say you can give me what I want, but why would you?"

  Lahav crouched and Morgan saw that he was rifling through a small military rucksack. He must have dropped it when Morgan attacked him. "You spoke to Dee," he said. "It's important for me to know what he told to you - what you told to the American." He stopped talking as he pulled the carved crystal mirror from his bag. It glinted in the sunlight that sneaked between the leaves of the trees.

  "If you've got that, why do you need me?" Morgan said.

  Lahav threw the mirror at his feet. It took Morgan a moment to recognise the leather-bound rod protruding from the front of the mirror. It was the pommel of Lahav's knife. He guessed the blade must have sheered off when it struck the glass - that this was what had saved him. Then he looked closer and realised he was wrong.

  The blade had passed through the mirror. The crystal was crazed around it, reflecting back only a fractured vision of the world. Morgan couldn't help himself - he flipped the mirror over, like a child trying to figure out how a magic trick worked, but there was nothing there. The blade had gone inside the mirror.

  "My blade has the power to kill anything, flesh or spirit," Lahav said. "Thanks to you, Dee is dead now, dead for real and for ever. What he knew, now only you and the American know. The American, he will use it to become what you chose not to: immortal and invulnerable. But we can stop him - with your help. We can give you a soul, but you must earn it. It's up to you, Morgan."

  The sound of sirens had been building under his words. "No more time to think," he said. "If you're joining me, we must go."

  Morgan found he couldn't move, frozen by indecision. If Lahav was what Coby hinted and the Israeli himself implied, the offer might be real. He really could give Morgan what he so desperately wanted. Or Lahav might be nothing more than a man and the offer nothing more than a ruse to tempt Morgan into betrayal.

  He heard the rustle of undergrowth and when a voice called out and another answered, his body seemed to make his decision for him. He scrambled to his feet.

  Lahav nodded once. He grasped the hilt of his knife, pulling it out of the world behind the mirror. "Follow me, then."

  It only took Morgan a moment to realise Lahav was leading them towards the sirens. He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. The Mossad agent had managed to elude both the police and the Hermetic Division for several days. He probably knew what he was doing.

  As the sound of sirens grew louder along with the rumble of traffic, Lahav dropped to his stomach. Morgan did the same, though there were brambles beneath the grass which snagged his boxers and scratched at the exposed skin of his belly. The smell of earth rose up, rich and comforting.

  When they reached the road, he appreciated the other man's caution. Police cars were parked only twenty feet away, sirens off now but lights still flashing as the cops milled around them. He wondered what they thought they were investigating. Had they been called after Morgan's attack on Lahav, or Lahav's attack on him? Or did they know the real truth now, that they were on the trail of a double murderer? If Lahav was right and the Hermetic Division had been called, they probably knew everything.

  Morgan put his mouth was against Lahav's ear and mouthed, "Back?"

  The Israeli shook his head, never taking his eyes from the road. "They will have people on all the exits from the river. There's no clear path."

  After a few seconds, the random jumble of cops shook itself out into some kind of organisation. They peeled off i
n pairs, some heading down the road, others across the grass towards the river. It seemed for a moment they might all leave, but three remained idling by the cars as one of them sparked up a cigarette. At the bend of the road, Morgan could see another congregation of uniformed figures.

  "Shit!" he said.

  Lahav clamped a hand on his arm to silence him, then nodded in the opposite direction. There was a pedestrian approaching, a young man around his own age. The newcomer was staring at the cops with the casual curiosity of someone who had absolutely nothing to hide.

  The cops themselves hadn't noticed him yet. They were huddled together laughing, maybe sharing a joke at the expense of the colleagues who'd walked away. They were distracted, and Morgan didn't think they'd have a better chance to make their move. He raised himself to a half-crouch, ready to spring across the road, but Lahav moved first. The Israeli sprang out to the pavement with startling suddenness. Morgan stood to follow, then stumbled back as he realised Lahav's intention. He had one arm round the waist of the passing tourist, the other hand clamped across his mouth. Another second and he was back in the bushes beside Morgan, the tourist trapped beneath his body.

  Morgan lowered himself back to his knees. He kept his eyes on the cops, half-seen through the screening bushes, but they hadn't moved. They hadn't seen anything.

  When he looked back at Lahav, the other man had his knife to the tourist's throat. It was glowing the orange of a summer sunset.

  Morgan grabbed his wrist and the tourist's eyes flicked to him, then back to Lahav. They were wide and terrified. Morgan tried to smile at him, the expression falling off his face as he looked back at Lahav. "No," he said. "No collateral damage."

  "I only kill those who have transgressed," Lahav said. His expression was so bland Morgan found it impossible to tell if he was lying. He loosened his fingers all the same, then almost cried out as Lahav's arm lashed out the instant it was free. But it was the pommel of the knife which struck the tourist, and the man's eyes rolled up into his head as he slumped into unconsciousness.