“I’ll still get home to him. It will just be a little later.” She finished her bar. “And it’s not as if he’s not being well taken care of. I have a friend, Hu Chang, who is extraordinary, and Luke adores him. My son probably isn’t even missing me.”
“A son always misses his mother.”
Catherine shrugged. “We have a rather guarded relationship. We were separated for nine years. There are a lot of bridges to mend.”
“But not guarded on your part.” Erin was studying her face. “You love him very much.”
“To the last beat of my heart.” She tilted her head. “What about you? I scanned your dossier but I saw no mention of immediate family. No children?”
She shook her head. “My parents are dead. I was married when I was in college. It was all sex and rock concerts and pot. But when we came down off the high, we found out that we wanted different things.”
Catherine suddenly chuckled. “It sounds weird to hear you talk about pot and sex. I was led to believe that you were some kind of Mother Teresa icon.”
“Not willingly.” She grimaced. “Look, all I did was what anyone else would do when faced with a catastrophe like Qinghai.”
“But not everyone did do what you did,” Catherine said. “You went beyond any reasonable limits.”
“I was there,” she said simply. “It had to be done. I knew some of the people in those villages. You would have done the same.”
“Perhaps. What happened after pot, sex, and rock and roll?”
“Charlie wanted to be a stockbroker, and I wanted to become a journalist and wander the world. We parted ways, and after a few years, I ended up in Tibet.” She smiled. “Sometimes I wish there had been a child, but I wasn’t prepared to be a parent anyway. It took me a long while to learn responsibility. How about you?”
“I wanted a child. I’d been alone all my life, and I wanted desperately to have someone of my own. Then when Luke was born, I knew that it wasn’t about what I wanted. It was what was best for him.”
“Your husband?”
“He was CIA, much older than me, a real good guy. He was shot by the same criminal who kidnapped my son.”
“And kept him for nine years?” Erin asked softly. “And you never stopped looking for him?”
“Not for a minute, not for a second.” Catherine took out her phone and pulled up the map of the mountain she’d already stored. “There doesn’t seem to be more than one very perilous road down this mountain, which links it to the next mountain in the range. Do you know of any other road? Do you remember Kadmus mentioning one?”
Erin shook her head.
“Then we need your mysterious source who told you about this cave to step up to the plate.”
“Sorry,” Erin said gravely. “I can’t promise that either.”
“I know you can’t. We’re hardly accessible for advice or anything else.” She knelt and wriggled into her sleeping bag. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”
“We could always parachute off the mountain. You seem to have everything else in that backpack.”
“Actually, that’s not too out of the question.” Catherine thought about it. “The Internet can give you directions to do anything. I’d have to see about the process you have to use to make—”
“I was joking.”
“I know, but some of the best ideas come out of the blue.” She smiled. “Would you jump off this mountain if I asked you, Erin?”
“Yes, why not? I promised you I’d do anything you told me to do.”
She meant it. Catherine was amazed and touched. “That was in a situation of immediate peril and emergency. I’m not perfect. I’ll do my best, but I believe you should draw the line somewhere.”
Erin shook her head. “You deserve to have my trust. You risked your life to come get me out of that hellhole. I might question. I might suggest. But in the end, I’ll do what you want me to do.” She sighed. “Though parachuting off the mountain may be a stretch.”
“I’ll see what I can do about avoiding it. With that shoulder, it could prove extremely painful.” She pulled the zipper of her sleeping bag up to her throat. “Crawl into your sleeping bag and try to nap. Don’t worry, I’ll hear anyone if they come down the path toward the cave.”
“CIA training?”
“Partly. Partly pure instinct. I’ve had to sleep with one eye open since I left the cradle.”
“Have you?” Erin was pulling up the zipper and settling as comfortably as she could. She closed her eyes. “Sad…”
“Life.”
“Not all life is sad.”
“Not if we try to help each other make it better.” Catherine waited a moment, then asked softly, “Who is Cameron?”
Even half-asleep, the question caused Erin to tense. “Not fair, Catherine.”
“I told you that I wasn’t perfect. Who is Cameron?”
“I’m going to sleep now.”
And Catherine would not try to keep her awake. Erin had suffered too long, and the escape had put her on the edge of exhaustion. Catherine had felt obligated to try to break through the silence that might be dangerous for both of them, but she would not pursue it. She had done what a good CIA agent would do. Now she would do what a decent human being would do.
“Sleep well, Erin.”
* * *
“Where the hell are you, Hu Chang?” Venable asked testily when Hu Chang answered the phone.
“Do you not know? You’ve been having me followed for some days.”
“Of course, I have,” he said bluntly. “You’ve always been the key to controlling Catherine. I couldn’t just let you wander around.”
“I’m disappointed.” He glanced at Tashdon, the pilot in the cockpit seat next to him, but the man was tactfully ignoring his conversation. “I thought I might have some small importance of my own. Since my self-love is seriously damaged, I believe I’m going to hang up.”
“Where are you? Dammit, I haven’t been able to trace you since you left the Golden Palace.”
“Because I didn’t wish your man to tail me. The situation has become very delicate, and I won’t have you sticking your far-from-subtle fingers in the mix. I only answered your call to make sure you knew that I will make myself available if you have any information I can use. Do you?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Good-bye.”
“Wait. Where are you?”
“At the moment, I’m in a helicopter flying over Kham Province in Tibet. That would make me approximately halfway to my destination.”
“Daksha.”
“Perhaps. I repeat, good-bye, Venable.” He hung up, and his gaze shifted out the cockpit window at the blinding brilliance of the snow-covered mountains.
“Hu Chang?”
He didn’t look behind him. “I thought you would be too curious not to eavesdrop. However, you should have exercised restraint considering the risk to life and limb I’ve taken in inviting you to be my guest.”
“I was curious, Hu Chang.”
He got to his feet. “Then I suppose I might as well come back there and decide if I’ll answer your questions, Luke.”
* * *
Cameron.
Darkness.
Cameron.
Swirling intensity.
Cameron!
“Good God, you’re a determined woman.” A man’s deep voice, half-impatient, half-amused. “I really didn’t want to do this, but it seems I have no choice.”
Cameron.
“I heard you. Now open your eyes and say hello properly.”
Catherine slowly opened her eyes.
No cave. No sleeping bag.
No cold.
A room furnished with rich Persian rugs, leather chairs, books …
A fire burning in a huge fireplace.
And a man in jeans and close-fitting black shirt standing before that fireplace, his body outlined by the flames. She couldn’t make out his features but they were framed by close-cut dark hair, and she got an impression of symmetry.