"That one."
"All right," he said, sitting and bouncing on the other. "Then this one's mine." He lowered his voice to a Charlton Heston baritone. "But let's get something straight, young lady: I know you're mad crazy about me, but I don't want you getting any ideas."
He's trying to reassure me, she thought, and had to smile. "Somehow I'll manage to restrain myself."
"Good," he said. "Because I'm taken."
Alicia sensed he wasn't kidding about that last part. She watched Jack a moment, trying to sort out her feelings for this man. So much about him terrified her… he was a deadly, murderous creature—how many men had he killed tonight? Yet here she was sharing a motel room with him and not only believing him when he said he was taken, but almost envying the woman who had won his heart.
I can't deal with this right now, she thought as she headed for her bed. I need sleep, a break, time out.
Too much had happened tonight. Returning to that house, seeing her old room, that man's room, then the murders in the backyard… that had been more than enough. But then that small army chasing them, the shots, the screams, that truck exploding, lighting up the night…
Alicia felt as if she were enveloped in a gelatinous fog, moving in slow motion toward that bed, that glorious bed.
Too much… too much … circuit overload… need downtime…
Finally she reached the bed. She pulled back the spread and crawled between the sheets.
"Good night," she said, and pulled the covers over her head.
Silence… and darkness… blessed darkness…
21.
"Good night," Jack said, watching Alicia curl into a lump under the covers.
A weird one, all right. But then, everything named Clayton seemed to be weird in some way.
Now what? he wondered. He should take a cue from Alicia and sack out, but he was too wired to sleep. The key… where did it fit? And that damn little Land Rover… something about its persistence in trying to get to the front yard of the Clayton house nagged at him.
Jack got up and headed for the door. He unlocked the Chevy, plucked the little truck from the backseat, and carried it to the middle of the parking lot.
"All right, Mr. Rover," he said, pushing the on switch, "let's see where you want to go now."
He placed it on the pavement, facing in the direction he assumed to be east, and let her go. The little truck raced away and almost immediately veered to the left. Jack expected it to wheel into a U-turn and head back toward him, but it came only three quarters of the way around, then angled away across the lot.
Jack raced after it and grabbed it before it ran under a parked Accord.
The truck should have headed due west, back toward the Clayton house—or rather, toward its front yard. Did he have his directions screwed up?
He scanned the stars. Good thing it was a cold, clear winter night. He traced the Big Dipper, ran a line up from the leading edge of its cup, and found Polaris. Okay. That was north.
He backed up to his original spot, pointed the truck east… and damn if it didn't make a beeline for that same Accord.
He found Polaris again. Back in Murray Hill, the truck had insisted on heading uptown—due north… toward the front yard, he'd assumed. But now it wanted to travel northwest… away from the front yard.
What had changed?
The Rover's position, for one.
Or had someone adjusted its controller, wherever that was?
This was going to take more investigation, and under better conditions than these.
Tomorrow… he'd spend all tomorrow figuring this out. And looking for the box that belonged to that key.
Jack returned to the room, taking the truck with him. He didn't want to leave it in the car overnight. Who knew?
Someone wandering through the lot might spot it and rip it off.
He slipped back into the room as quietly as he could. He could make out Alicia's form under the covers, curled into the fetal position.
What are you hiding from? he wondered.
He felt a mixture of admiration and pity for her—and he knew she'd resent the pity like all hell, but still, that was what he felt. Somewhere, somehow, she'd been terribly damaged, and he pitied anyone who'd been scarred so deeply. But she'd waged—was still waging, apparently—a valiant battle against the effects of whatever had been done to her.
Maybe tonight had been too much for her. Maybe he shouldn't have insisted she come along.
But what other options had he had? She'd lived in that house, and he'd needed her help.
Still, he got a cold knot in his stomach when he looked at that fetal lump, curled and cocooned so defensively against the world.
How would she be when she awoke tomorrow morning?
Jack flopped back on the other bed and stared at the stained ceiling, wondering about that until sleep claimed him.
22.
Kemel Muhallal sat with shaking hands and trembling insides. He felt as if he were on a jet racing through an endless storm.
He slumped on the couch in his apartment, too disheartened for prayer, too exhausted to drag himself to the bedroom.
For the first time since his arrival in this thrice-cursed land, he harbored doubts about the outcome of his mission. He had expected some difficulty, certainly, in securing the Clayton technology, but never this much. The Clayton woman had enlisted the devil himself as her ally.
When he had noticed her car gone, he had wanted to use the tracer to chase after her, but could not. The bodies… all the bodies had to be removed before the police arrived. He, Baker, and the two surviving members of Baker's team had had to carry them to the van. Then they had had to flee, running like jackals in the night.
A harrowing, humiliating experience.
But it all would have been worth it had he learned if Alicia Clayton and her devil had discovered anything in the house.
And what of the sale of that house? Haffner had sent word to her attorney that her price would be met. No response yet. Would she respond at all after tonight?
If not, the whole process would be set back weeks. And what would that mean for Ghali? Kemel had to get home to help his son.
Kemel tugged at his beard. He was being pulled in so many directions. What was he to do!
Should he fail to secure the Clayton technology, he then must make sure no one else got it.
Be calm, he told himself for the ten thousandth time since he had stepped through the door.
But how could he be calm when tomorrow morning he might pick up a newspaper and see a headline announcing the Clayton technology to the world?
He shuddered at the repercussions to his homeland, at the thought of the entire Middle East returning to the Saudi Arabia of his father, who had made his own shoes and lived with his fellow bedouin in goat-hair tents or in mud huts clustered around oases, with no electricity, no medication, no medical care. That was Arab life before the 1960s. That was what his own life—and his sons'—would be if he failed in his quest.
He wished he could pass this burden to someone more used to dealing with these matters, but secrecy was so tantamount to success—they could lose everything if even a whisper of the nature of the technology leaked out—that the leaders of Iswid Nahr had forbidden anyone else, even another member of Iswid Nahr, from being told.
Kemel Muhallal had been present when Thomas Clayton brought Iswid Nahr proof of his father's technology. Why had he felt blessed by Allah that day? It had been a curse. Because he was among the very few who knew the secret, the burden of resolving the matter had fallen upon his shoulders.
Kemel squared those shoulders. He must not despair. He was not yet defeated. He must trust in Allah and believe that Alicia Clayton and her devil had learned nothing.
And on the subject of devils, what was he going to do with his own devil… Baker? Kemel had lost all faith in the man, but the day might be approaching when he would have to make use of his brute nature and crude tactics.