7 Steps to Midnight (34 page)

Gray
, he thought.

The very air seemed gray and laden with moisture; he could almost feel the weight of it on his skin. It was a warm moisture, and there was a thicker, wet smell in the air, a smell of age and rot.

Pushing to his feet, he crossed to the window. Both casements had been cranked out all the way, the pale white curtains stirring in a feeble breeze.

The room overlooked an alley-like street. He could see now that it was raining; a thin, mistlike curtain of it was descending so slowly, it seemed to defy gravity. Unreal, he thought.

His lips drew back in a soundless snarl. Don’t start
that
again, he ordered himself.

The floor felt damp beneath his feet and he looked down. His clothes were on, but his shoes and socks had been removed. He vaguely recalled Alexsandra doing that as he had fallen asleep on the bed.

He turned to look at the room. Where was she? Had she disappeared yet one more time?

There was a piece of paper on his bedside table. He walked there to pick it up.

He read the note a second time.
Yes ma’am
, he thought glumly.
Anything you say. Where the hell would I go, anyway?

He dropped the note on the bed and, sitting down, pulled on his shoes and socks. He rubbed a hand across his cheeks.
Need a shave
, he thought. But with what?

Blowing out a heavy breath, he stood and returned to the window.

The paving of the alley-like street was about six feet below the windowsill. Across the way, about twenty feet distant, was either another hotel or an apartment house, wall and windows rising so high that he couldn’t see the roof. He checked his watch; it was 3:27. How long had he slept? he wondered. The train trip from Lucerne had been exhausting. He’d barely made it to the hotel.

One of the windows across the way had a light in it. He saw a man inside the room, sitting in his underwear, reading a newspaper and sipping at a glass of wine. Was he a spy? Chris thought. He shook that off, irritably.
Come on, Barton
, he told himself.
Everybody in the world isn’t a spy. Even though it seems that way sometimes.

He looked down at the shop windows on the street, the cafés with furniture outside, glistening and dripping from the rain. This is
Venice
? he thought. Where were the canals? Even when they’d arrived last night—early this morning, actually—he hadn’t seen a canal. Unless that arcing footbridge they’d walked over had crossed a canal. But immediately after crossing it, they’d been walking along a dark, muggy street; probably the one he was looking at now.

He turned and gazed at the bed, noticing now that the other side of it appeared rumpled as well. She’d slept
beside
him? Good God, he thought. He shook his head, a pained smile on his lips. Here he’d been desperately wanting to go to bed with Alexsandra ever since he’d met her. Now, it appeared, he’d done so and hadn’t even known about it.

***

As he stood in the bathroom, relieving himself, it occurred to him that gray was the ideal color (or lack thereof) to describe the way he felt.

Whatever stimulation he’d experienced before had completely faded now, the “adventure” reduced to a dismaying progression of different places, different people, different deaths.

He felt a sense of weighty depression settling on him. Was this nightmare ever going to end? He’d tried to maintain a sense of humor about it, but it had become impossible to do that now. The characters in novels he’d read seemed able to accept death easily, blithely moving on to the next suspenseful incident.

To actually see it happen was a different story altogether. The memory of the murdered man on Mount Pilatus would be with him for a long time.

He gazed at his reflection in the mirror hanging above the sink.
Still me
, he thought;
barely.
He was beginning to get a definite sense of what “reality slippage” might actually be. He shivered convulsively. This has got to end, he thought.

But how?

Finish your work before the slippage is complete
, he heard the words of the man in the Hovercraft in his mind.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror. Was that the answer? Something about it seemed persuasive. If he were able to complete his work, keep it all in his head, with nothing down on paper, wouldn’t he be in some kind of bargaining position with whoever was behind all this?

There was nothing else to hold on to.

Hastily, he dried his face and hands and ran water into a glass. Returning to the bedroom, he took the two vials of medication from his pocket and swallowed his Calan and Vasotec. Thank God he hadn’t left the vials in his hotel room in Lucerne. As it was he had no belongings again. Would “they” provide him with
another
bag of clothes, a passport—?

A look of confusion gripped his features.

How could Alexsandra have gotten him into Italy without a passport? They’d arrested him in Lucerne when he hadn’t had one.

He clenched his teeth in aggravation. Another goddamn mystery, he thought.

He didn’t want to get caught up in the muddle of trying to figure things out again. Putting the vials back in his jacket pocket,
he turned toward what looked like a writing table, and was pleased to see a bowl of fruit on it. He was hungry.
Again
, he thought, amazed.

Sitting at the table, he pushed aside the bowl of fruit and opened the top drawer. “At last,” he muttered. Something was going right for a change. There was stationery in the drawer, a ballpoint pen. He saw that he was in the Hotel Adrian.

He lifted out the sheets of paper and the pen and laid them on the table. Then, as he allowed his eyes to go out of focus, once more staring inwardly to summon up the readouts on his mental computer, he idly picked up an orange and began to peel it.

He grunted, jolting as he saw what looked like blood dribbling across his palm. “Jesus,” he muttered, staring at his hand, the first “computer readout” vanishing from his mind. Blood from an orange?

He realized then, with a labored swallow, that it must be some kind of orange he’d never seen before, possibly indigenous to Italy. He slowly exhaled, imagining that a screwdriver made with the juice of these oranges would look like a Bloody Mary.

He cleaned off his hand with his handkerchief and set the orange aside. As he mentally drifted inward again, he started eating grapes from the bowl. The computer screen flickered on in his brain and he began retrieving information, nodding without realizing that he was doing so. It was there, he saw. Maybe not the total picture. The basic path though. He only had to walk along it now and observe the countryside attentively.

He began to scribble the last part of the final readout onto paper, then continued with it, gaze fixed on the array of formulaic figures spilling across the sheet as though by magic.
Yes
, the analyzer in his brain observed. No doubt about it.

He was almost there.

***

He started on the chair, twisting around, the calculations in his brain evaporating instantaneously.

Alexsandra was standing by the door, looking at him.

He knew from the moment he saw her that something was wrong.

“What is it?” he asked.

She didn’t respond, but stood immobile, gazing at him.

“What
is
it?” he repeated, urgently now.

Again, no answer. Instead, she walked across the room and, reaching down, picked up the sheet of paper. He tensed for a moment before he realized that the figures couldn’t possibly have any meaning to her. Unless it turned out that she was an advanced mathematical theoretician, and he didn’t think she was.

“So,” she said, a grim smile drawing back her lips. “This is what it’s all about?”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but didn’t ask. He watched as she shook her head, the somber smile fixed to her lips.

“Difficult to believe,” she said, “now that I see it here on paper.” She looked at him. “How many people can it kill?” she asked.

He tightened at the question. “I’m not trying—” he began.

“It
can
kill people,” she interrupted. “That
is
the idea, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer at first.
Well, yes
, he thought defensively.
That isn’t what I have in mind though, while I’m trying to
—

The thought vanished as she put down the paper and turned away. “You don’t have to answer,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”

He stared at her as she walked to the window.

What is
wrong
? he thought. She’d sounded so bitter, so condemning.

He stood and walked over to her. She was gazing out the window just as he had. As he reached her, he heard a deep sigh falling from her lips.

“What
is
it, Alexsandra?” he asked. He wanted to hold her, but something in her manner kept him from it.

At first, she said nothing. He heard the sound of her swallowing, dryly. “Look how gray it is outside,” she murmured. He winced a little. His exact reaction, earlier. Did
that
mean something?

She turned to face him and he tensed to see tears glistening in
her eyes. He took hold of her arms. “
What is it?
” he asked, pleading.

Without a word, she slipped her arms around him and kissed him hard. Somehow it struck him as a farewell kiss. The notion made him shudder.

She drew back then and gazed into his eyes. “I love you, Chris.”

He was going to respond with pleasure when she added, “But I can’t do anything to help you.”

He felt a chill sinking into his stomach. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I’ve spoken to my supervisor,” she said. “I asked if there was some way of getting you back to your own country. Some way of getting you away from Europe.”

When she didn’t continue, he spoke for her. “He said no?” he asked.

“It has to go on,” she told him.

“For how long?” he asked uneasily.

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “He doesn’t know. He’s following orders too.”

“My God, how can I be
that important
?” he said angrily. “I’m just a cog in a goddamn wheel.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You know that isn’t true. What you’re working on is most important to your government.” The grave smile once again. “Or should I say your
Pentagon
?”

“Why are you so accusatory?” he demanded. “Aren’t we both in the same business?”

“No.” She shook her head again. “This is the first time I’ve ever had anything to do with something like this.”

She pressed against him once more, tightly holding onto him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We have to go. There’s something I’ve got to show you. You and I are almost finished now.”

He tried to get her to explain what she’d meant by that, but she wouldn’t do it; she only crossed to the door and opened it. He asked if he shouldn’t shave first and she responded with a mordant smile.

He hesitated, then quickly moved to the writing table, picked
up the paper and memorized what he’d written on it. Then, taking the sheet into the bathroom, he tore it up and flushed it down the toilet. She waited for him by the door, saying nothing.

They walked downstairs to the hotel lobby and out into the street. The rain was so fine that Chris could scarcely feel it on his head.

Five minutes later, they were sitting in a covered boat (Alexsandra called it a Vaporetto), moving along the Grand Canal. Chris almost felt guilty since he couldn’t appreciate the remarkable building they passed, the bottom floors of which were at water level. But it was Paris all over again, with his inability to enjoy anything because of the circumstances.

He barely glanced at the exotic antiquity of the Rialto Bridge as the Vaporetto glided beneath it. All he could think about was Alexsandra and what she intended to show him. He remembered how unhappy she’d sounded in the car after they’d eaten on the Bateau-Mouche. It was far worse now. There seemed to be such a depth of embittered sorrow in her. He wanted to know why more than anything, but she seemed entirely cut off from him; he had no idea whatsoever what he could say to end her dark isolation.

Despite the sense of gloom her presence—and the overcast weather—forced on him, he couldn’t help feeling a thrill of historical awe as he saw the green-capped tower of the Campanile above the building tops ahead.
St. Mark’s Square
, he thought. He was actually there.

The Vaporetto drew over to its landing dock and Alexsandra stood up. Chris followed her ashore.
My God
, he thought.
There it is.

Even though he’d seen the square in movies and in photographs, he was still unprepared for the impact of it. The towering Campanile bell tower was made of brick, a gilded angel statue on its peak. There were the arches, architraves and crowning statues of the Renaissance-era library. The clock tower with its figures of two Moors on top, poised to strike the hours. The immense rectangular structure of the Doge’s Palace with its porticoes and loggia at the bottom, its massive walls above. Most impressive of all, the extraordinary St. Mark’s Basilica with its combination of
Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic architecture—the great balcony of its main facade, the upper lunettes with their stunning mosaics. Looking at the church, Chris was struck by the fact that its overall form was that of a giant altar.

He glanced at Alexsandra as she took him by the hand and led him toward the Doge’s Palace. He had to break the silence between them, with anything.

“How did you get me into Italy without a passport?” he asked.

“That wasn’t a problem,” she answered quietly. “We have people everywhere.”

She sounded so disappointed that he simply had to know why. “What’s
wrong
?” he asked. “Please. Tell me.”

For several moments, it seemed as though she was about to tell him. He could see that she wanted to, that not telling him was painful to her.

But then, with a tightening of her lips, she said nothing, and only drew him toward the entrance of the palace. Porta Delia Carta, he remembered it was called. Goddamn memory, he thought, disgusted by it. Once something was rooted in his head, it never left.