“No, you can’t kill him,” Queen said. “He has to stay alive. We’re safe as long as he’s alive.”
“Meaning your branch of Army Intelligence?” Joe asked. “Then you may all start having to live on the edge.” He took a step back from Queen. “I want an address, a map, and anything else I can use against Gallo.” He picked up the robe on the floor and threw it to Queen. “Start moving.”
“I have to go to my office downstairs.” Queen shrugged into his robe. “I have a map we made of his compound about a year ago. At least what we knew about it. He’s a secretive bastard.”
“Now why would you want to go to that trouble?” Catherine said. “Planning a raid? Or were you going for extermination.” She followed him as he left the bedroom. “I’d say a raid. Gallo must have something on you. You’d want to get in and make sure the evidence wasn’t left carelessly about if something unforeseen happened to him.” She glanced over her shoulder. Joe was going through the drawers on the nightstand. Smart move. Queen might want to keep anything of importance close to him. She followed Queen down the stairs. “What does he have on you?”
“Screw you. I’m giving you what you want. That’s all you’ll get from me.” He turned on the light in the office. “I can still get out of this if I work it right. And who knows, Gallo may kill you.”
“You can always hope.” She watched him go over to the desk and unlock the drawers. “But you’d better hope Eve is still alive when we get there. Otherwise, Joe is going to explode, and no one may come out alive. He’ll go nuts.”
“Another one?” Queen asked sourly. “I’m used to dealing with nutsos after Gallo.”
“Are you? Why deal with Gallo? Why not just lock him up and throw away the key?” She tilted her head. “Oh, that’s right; you did that, didn’t you? But the North Koreans decided to keep that key.”
“He volunteered,” Queen said defensively. “He was a Ranger. He knew that going in on that mission was dangerous. He made the choice.”
“He was there for a long time. You couldn’t arrange a trade?”
“It wouldn’t have been wise. If we’d acknowledged Gallo, then we’d have had to make awkward explanations.”
“My God.”
“Horrified?” His lip curled. “Why? You know how it works. You do what you have to do to get the job done.”
Yes, Catherine knew, but this was nasty beyond belief. “But he escaped. Did you at least help?”
He didn’t answer. “I have the map here.” He pulled out a folded paper and pushed it across the desk. “And a few possible scenarios that we thought might work to take him down.”
“Did you help him escape?” she repeated.
“It would have been too risky.” He scowled. “He made out all right. After he reached the coast, he was picked up and taken to Tokyo. He had good medical attention.”
“What kind of shape was he in?”
“Why are you asking? Why do you care? He’s your target.”
“You said he was crazy. If he’s crazy, he’s a threat to Eve. I have to know how crazy … and why. What will trigger him?”
“He was half-starved. He was in solitary for the first two years. He was tortured. No permanent physical damage that the doctors could tell.”
“Physical. Mental?”
“Hallucinations. Periods of total withdrawal. Nightmares. Episodes of uncontrollable rage. After six months, we convinced the doctors that he was well enough to be released into our custody.”
“Why would you want to do that? Why not leave him in the hospital?”
“It wouldn’t have been smart.”
“Why not?”
“When he was delusional, he was … indiscreet. He raved like a lunatic. We couldn’t afford for the Koreans to know about his mission. Washington would have been embarrassed.”
“So you took him away from medical care. What did you do with him?”
“We put him back doing the work he’d been trained to do. He was a Ranger.”
“As ill and irrational as you say he was?”
“He performed very well. We were surprised.”
She was studying his expression. “You sent him out to get killed,” she said softly. “He was an inconvenience, and you wanted him out of your path. Suicide missions.”
“Ridiculous. He survived them, didn’t he?”
She just looked at him.
“See how sympathetic you are when he has his knife to your throat,” Queen said bitterly. “Or when you find Eve Duncan in a gully in those mountains.”
“I’m not sympathetic.” She crossed the room and stuffed the map in her pocket. “I just get sick to my stomach with all of us sometimes.”
“Do you have it?” Joe was standing behind her.
“Yes. I was about to get rid of him.”
Queen stiffened.
“No, I’m not going to kill you.” Catherine came around the desk. “As you said, it wouldn’t be smart. We’ve all got to be practical and smart, don’t we? Though I’d love to take you out. I have a hunch you caved too easily and are using us to do your dirty work. But I’ll resist the temptation. Just can’t let you cause us any trouble.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a hypodermic. “Fight me, and you’ll end up with air in your bloodstream and a possible embolism. Otherwise, it’s fourteen hours of sleep.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Take your choice.” She plunged the needle into his neck.
Two seconds later, Queen collapsed on the desk.
“You came prepared,” Joe said.
“I usually am. My teacher, Hu Chang, always preferred potions to brute force.” She looked down at Queen. “Though I might have preferred to use pain instead. Queen is a slimeball. What they did to Gallo was very ugly.”
“Ask me if I care. Gallo has Eve.”
She nodded. “And we have fourteen hours before we have to worry about Army Intelligence.” She turned toward the door. “And a few hours will be taken up just getting to Utah. We’d better get moving. On the way to meet you, I contacted the pilot I used when we flew to Russia. I thought we might need him. You remember Dorsey?”
He nodded. “How quick can he get here?”
“He was in Miami. He should be at Reagan National Airport by the time we drive there. Once we’re on the plane, we’ll look over Queen’s map and suggested plans of entry and see which one we think will work.”
“He caved quicker than I thought he would.” Joe’s tone was disappointed. “Too bad.”
“He wanted to get away from dealing with Gallo.” She moved toward the door. “And he was willing to get in hot water with his superiors to do it. They’re handling Gallo with kid gloves. He’s definitely got the upper hand. They’re not about to help us.”
“They don’t have to help us.” He opened the door of the car. “They just have to stay out of our way.”
* * *
SOMEONE WAS IN THE ROOM.
Eve woke, her heart pounding, her gaze wildly searching the darkness.
“It’s okay,” John Gallo said. “You’re safe. It’s just me.”
She could see him, only a dark shadow, sitting on the big chair by the window.
She drew a long breath and sat up in bed. “And that’s supposed to give me a sense of security? What are you doing here?”
“Nothing carnal. Though it’s natural that you should think of that. It was the bedrock of what we were together.”
“Not anymore.”
“I’m not as sure as you are. I still feel a stirring when I look at you. I don’t know if it’s memory or imagining how it would be now. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“I’m going to turn on the lamp.”
“No, don’t. The darkness is easier for me.” He paused. “I’m naturally defensive, and I need to close everything out but what I’m going to say. Or I won’t say it. Ask me about Bonnie.”
Her every muscle stiffened. “Did you kill her?”
“I did not.”
“Then what were you doing in Atlanta that month?”
“I wanted to see her.”
“You knew about her? Your uncle Ted told you about Bonnie?”
“No, he died while I was in prison. If he wrote me, I never got the letters. I wish I could have been with him at the end. I loved him.”