“Hell,” said Finn. “Zenda Castle?”
“Where else?” said Lucas. “It would be perfect. Michael’s got enough to do with keeping up the chateau. It must be costing him a fortune. Why would he waste time and money refurbishing a ruined castle when he doesn’t need the room, especially since he has hopes of moving into the palace soon?”
“Derringer told us he’d only seen lights burning in the new addition,” Finn said. “The rest of the place has probably been abandoned for years.”
“And you’ve established that Falcon is in close contact with Michael and Rupert Hentzau,” Lucas said. “It all fits. She’s had the opportunity to visit the chateau. She could have asked to see the castle, dropped a remote in there somewhere when no one was looking, homed in on it later, and clocked right in. There would have been more than enough time to explore the place, program transition coordinates, and establish a practically impregnable base of operations.”
“Nice,” said Finn. “Now all we have to do is find a way to get into the castle, rescue the king, and flush out the Timekeepers. What could be simpler? Searching that old ruin shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”
“That’s why Falcon didn’t kill you before,” said Lucas. “Why take unnecessary risks when they can make us come to them? She wants to be certain to get all of us. Their first move was to deprive us of our temporal mobility. Now all they have to do is wait.”
“Sure,” said Finn, grimly. “The minute we set foot inside Zenda Castle, we’ll be on their home ground. Got any ideas?”
Lucas shook his head. “No. Do you?”
“Yeah,” said Finn, morosely. “Why don’t we just shoot each other and deprive them of their satisfaction?”
“You lied to me,” said Drakov.
Falcon did not reply. The moment she clocked in, she began to strip off her elegant gown, shucking her identity as the Countess Sophia as though it were wholly inappropriate for such a dismal setting as the castle turret. Drakov watched her with scorn as she removed every last item of her clothing, laying everything out very carefully upon a clean blanket spread out on the cold stone floor. She was incredibly beautiful, yet she was completely unself-conscious of her nakedness. Aside from the goose pimples that rose upon her flesh, the cold did not seem to bother her. It would be a long time before the warmth of the early morning sun penetrated into the keep, and its light served to give only a little illumination. Falcon strode barefoot across the floor and began to dress in the black fatigues that she had left folded on her cot. She used no wasted motions. Everything about her was methodical, thought Drakov, even the way she made love, though the method there was far more subtle, far more complex, and far more incomprehensible than any that he had encountered in almost 80 years of life. In three months, he would be 79 years old. He looked 30 and, till now, he had felt it. Falcon had aged him, emotionally if not physically, but then she would probably have that same effect on any man, born of a natural union or not.
“What are you complaining about now?” she said.
“Trust,” he said. “Or rather the lack of it. You will, perhaps, excuse me if I chafe under my new status as your supernumerary. It is not a role I am accustomed to.”
“What in hell are you talking about?” She pulled on the black trousers and sat down on the cot to put on her boots.
“It was never your intention for this to be our secret base of operations,” he said. “You mean to lure them here.”
“So?” she said, putting on her shirt. “That bothers you?”
“Not by itself,” he said. “I can even see a certain logic to it. What bothers me is that I finally see my role in all of this defined. I am to be used as bait and nothing more.”
She looked up at him, meeting his gaze, saying nothing.
“In a way,” said Drakov, “I am astonished that it took me so long to see it. Yet, in another way, I am surprised that I have even seen it at all. It means, I think, that I am finally beginning to understand you and I find that quite disturbing.”
Falcon picked up a pack of cigarettes, took one out, rubbed it against the side of the pack to ignite it, then leaned back against the wall, one leg drawn up underneath her, the other bent at the knee to provide a prop for her right arm. She inhaled a deep lungful of smoke and expelled it through her nostrils. She didn’t speak, but her look prompted him to continue.
“He’s here,” said Drakov. “Or did you already know?”
“I knew,” she said. “You saw him?”
“He nearly killed me.”
“Only nearly? Then he must be slipping.”
“At first, I told myself that you must have arranged it somehow, but I don’t see how you could have. Besides, if he had killed me, it would have spoiled your plans. For both of us.”
“That’s true,” she said. “What happened?”
“He came up on me as I took the Observer. Even as I struck, I knew he was behind me. I don’t know how I knew. I simply knew. He fired as I turned and I felt the beam graze me.” He lifted his shirt to show her the burn on his left side, just beneath the large latissimus dorsi muscle. “I activated the remote with one hand and fired with the other. I had no chance to aim. I had one very brief glimpse of him, no more than a dark shape. I never saw his face. In the same instant that I felt the pain of my wound, I was back here again. But it was he. I know it.”
“Are you sorry that you missed him?” she said.
Drakov was silent for a moment. “No,” he said, finally. “I want to see his face. I want him to see my face when he dies. And I want him to know the reason for it.”
“He knows,” said Falcon. “It’s the only thing that would have brought him here.”
“You would have liked it otherwise,” said Drakov. “You would rather that you were the reason.”
She did not reply. She sat there, smoking, watching him without expression. Nothing in her face gave any indication of what she was really thinking, but then, nothing ever did.
“What is your real name?” said Drakov.
She did not answer.
“Did Forrester know?”
Again, no reply.
“Did anyone? Ever? Or did you just spring full blown, as if from the head of Zeus, with walls and moats and drawbridges, a veritable fortress of isolation and self-containment?”
“Is there a point to any of this?” she said. “Because, if not, I would like to get some sleep. I’ve had a very long night.”
“With Rupert Hentzau.”
“Don’t tell me that you’re jealous. For you, that would be the height of hypocrisy.”
“Hypocrisy?” said Drakov, with a slight smile. “That you, of all people, should accuse me of hypocrisy. I called you a fanatic, but I was wrong. Or rather, I was correct in calling you a fanatic, but incorrect in pinpointing your fanaticism. I have no doubt that at one time, your involvement with the Timekeepers was sincere. Insofar as you are capable of sincerity. You were a passionless woman in search of something to be passionate about, but when you found it, not in the struggle to bring the Time Wars to a halt, but in the arms of the man who is my father, it proved to be too much for you. You could not cross your moat and raise your drawbridge and hide behind your walls. You met a man whom you could not control. Worse yet, with whom you could not control yourself. He made you love him and for that, you cannot forgive him.”
“You’re becoming a real bore, Nicky.”
“My apologies. It was my impression that you had grown bored with me a long time ago. But you never tired of Moses Forrester, did you?” He reached into his pocket and took out the ring that she had given him. He tossed it to her. It landed on her lap. “Perhaps you should take this back,” he said. “It means much more to you than it does to me.”