“Then what’s left for you, my darling?” Stephanie asked softly. “What’s left for us?”
“The list.”
She looked at him questioningly. “What?”
“The four names from the computer. I’m going after them. They’re our only leads. If there are still connections between the O’Haire network and whoever was running it, they might know.”
“Highnote knows that. He’ll have his people waiting for you.” McAllister pulled away. “Goddamnit, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said. Highnote is not Zebra One.”
“I’m sorry,” Stephanie said. “But even if you’re right, he’ll have to follow up with those four names. It’s his duty. He’ll have to go to them for the same reasons you want to go to them.”
McAllister was shaking his head, and sudden understanding dawned in Stephanie’s eyes. “You didn’t tell him, did you?” she said. “No.”
She smiled. “You held back that one piece of information. Why? Can you answer that?”
“It never came up,” he said weakly.
“Because you didn’t bring it up,” she said triumphantly. “Whatever you say you believe, there is something at the back of your head, some instinct for survival that told you to keep it from him. Just in case.”
“There’s nothing he could have done. “No,” Stephanie interrupted. “Do you know what I think? I think that something did happen to you in the Lubyanka. Something that changed you, something that made you unsure of your own abilities. But deep in your gut you know what moves to make, you know how to protect yourself. What happened in New York, and what’s been happening ever since proves that. Let yourself go, David. Let your old habits, your old instincts take over. Do what you know is the right thing. You have the tradecraft, use it.”
“We’ll have to get out of here first thing in the morning,” he said, going over to the window and looking down at the empty street.
Tradecraft was what you used against the enemy, not againstfriends. Put a bullet in your head…. End it now…. It would be for the best. Gloria has written you off”Where are we going?”
“Out of Washington,” he said. “Where? To do what?”
He focused on her pale reflection in the dark window glass. He’d lived with pain for so long he was surprised now that he wasn’t used to it. She didn’t look real to him; her hair was in disarray, and she was dressed simply in a loose sweatshirt and blue jeans, yet he knew that he wanted her. It astonished him, this sudden feeling. He’d either come a long way in the past weeks, or he had fallen-he couldn’t decide which, or if at this moment it really mattered.
“He told me to send you back.” McAllister said. “In a way he was right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t afford you any longer. You’ll slow me down to such a degree that they’ll catch up with us, and we’ll both be dead.” His words sounded hollow in his ears. “Sooner or later they’ll get to your father and use him to pry you loose. I’m not going to wait for that to happen.”
He turned to her. Tears were slipping down her cheeks. “I don’t have anyplace to go,” she said.
“Dexter Kingman would make sure nothing happened to you.” She was shaking her head again. “I’m not going to leave you, David. Not now, not after everything that has happened.”
“You’re not listening to me,” McAllister said, his voice rising. “They’re probably going to win. There are too many of them, they’re too well organized. Sooner or later I’ll simply wear down, my luck will run out, and it’ll be over.”
“They’d hunt me as well.”
“Not if they were convinced that you knew nothing. That I’d held you against your will.”
“I’m not leaving you, David,” she said. “Whatever it is I have to do to convince you, I will.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you,” she cried. “I told you once, didn’t you hear me? Didn’t you believe me? I love you. There is no life for me without you.”
He turned back to the window again, unable to face her. He knewwhat he wanted to say, but he simply could not speak the words. Not now. The insanity was everywhere. With him there was death, away from him there was at least the possibility of life. Something was driving him, something had always driven him for as long as he could remember. But even now he could not give voice to the demons inside of him. “It’s the game that gets to all of us sooner or later,” Wallace Mahoney had said at the Farm. He’d lost his wife and both sons to the business, yet he’d gone on because there were no other possibilities for him.
The only reality is in continuing with your life for better or for worse. The Russians have a proverb: Life is unbearable, but death is not so pleasant either. “You have to believe me,” Stephanie said. “You cannot stay with me.”
“There is only one thing that would make me go,” she said. “Turn around and look at me!”
McAllister turned.
“Tell me that you don’t care for me. Tell me that it doesn’t matter that I love you. Tell me that you will never care for me. Then I’ll leave you.”
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
“I can’t tell you that, because I do love you. It’s why I wanted to send you away, to keep you in hiding, to keep you safe, to protect you. I don’t care what happens to anyone else, only you. If you want to stay I won’t send you away.” She took off her sweatshirt. Her shoulders were tiny and rounded, the nipples of her small breasts were erect. “I want to stay,” she said. “I’ll never leave.”
McAllister came across the room to her, and took her in his arms, his lips finding hers. She shuddered as she pressed against him, the heat of her body penetrating his shirt. He ran his hands down her back, her flanks, the mounts of her bottom, small and tight in her lue jeans. She shuddered again.
“Please, David,” she said looking into his face. “Make love to e now.“He picked her up and carried her across the room where he laid her on the bed. Undoing the waistband of her jeans, he pulled them down around her boyish hips, and peeled them off her long, straight legs. He kissed her breasts, his tongue lingering at her nipples, and then brushed his lips across her belly, the tops of her legs, her inner thighs as she spread her legs, her pelvis rising to meet his touch.
When he stepped back to get undressed, she watched him, her lips parted, a faint flush coming to her complexion. He laid his gun on the table beside the bed, and let his clothes fall where they would. “Hurry,” she said. “Hurry.”
He came to her on the bed, her legs parting for him, and he entered her without preliminaries. She opened her lips as they kissed, her fingers pulling at his back, her legs wrapped around his body, her hips rising to meet his thrusts.
“I’ll never leave you, David,” she cried softly. “I’ll never leave you.”
Later, lying beside each other, McAllister watched her breasts rise and fall with her breathing. Her odor was slightly musky and very sensuous.
“I don’t know how this is going to turn out,” he said. “But I’m not going to give it up. I don’t think I have that choice.”
She looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes, a faint smile on her lips. “Do you love me?”
The snow was falling very hard outside now. He touched her lips with his fingertips. “Yes.”
“Say it,” she said. “I love you.”
“Then nothing else matters. We’ll do it together, David.” She smiled. “Now make love to me again. I need you.”
It was very late. McAllister woke with a start, suddenly realizing that he was alone in the big bed. He sat up, shoving the covers back. The television set was still on, but the screen was blank and the sound had been turned down. The only other light came from the partially open bathroom door.