Masquerade (40 page)

This was a new side of Asher, and it struck her he was saying aloud thoughts he usually kept to himself. She asked, “You were that angry about going to both church and temple?”

“Actually I loved both religions. The ceremonies and the singing. The fathers and the nuns, and the rabbi and the minyan. The tales about noble deeds. On Saturday my mother and I walked to temple and did no work, because we observed Shabbos. On Sunday my father and I went to mass. Both ways seemed natural. Then one night I heard them fighting. They were fighting about God. Who had the real God? The Catholics or the Jews? Being an only child, which God I chose was important, because that would make one of them right. So what did that make the other one? Chopped liver? A chimichanga?”

He turned automatically to the window, as if he could see through the drapes to the thirteenth-century street below. As if he could see back in time to the logic of parents engaged in a religious war. He shook his head. He could see neither.

“It made you feel crazy, I'd guess.” She studied the profile of his aristocratic nose. It could be straight off a Mayan hieroglyph or a Warsaw ghetto wall. He seemed to quiver in the lamplight.

“A little crazy, maybe.” He turned to look at her, quizzical, surprised he'd revealed himself.

“Well, join the crowd. I don't have all my memories back. Maybe I'll feel even crazier when I know everything there is to know about me.”

“On the other hand, maybe you'll like it.”

For a moment she saw herself burying her face in his chest. Bathing herself naked in the electric intensity she found so magnetic about him. She picked up her glass. It was a fine wine, full-bodied. She wanted to stand naked with him again, tucked into his curves. She could smell him across the table, the scent of travel she'd washed off but he still carried.

He put down his fork and reached out to lay the palm of his hand alongside her cheek. She turned into it, kissed it. Saw the hunger in his eyes, soul-bared, vulnerable.

After dinner he showed her the clothes he'd bought her—a man's white shirt, black necktie, somber black suit with black socks and shoes, skullcap, broad-brimmed felt hat to go on top of the skullcap, a prayer shawl, and fake side locks that matched her dyed black hair.

She touched the satiny side locks. “My God, I'm going to a Jewish funeral.”

“I hope not. These are your standard clothes for your standard young male Hasidic Jew. You'll need to add glasses—” he handed her wire-rimmed spectacles “—and
tefillin
.” He held out a little leather box with a long strap.
“Tefillin,”
he repeated, and she took it from him. “I'll show you how to wrap the strap around your arm. The box contains Holy Scripture. See,
Hasidim
means ‘the pious ones,' and they're serious about it. They believe in trusting God, preaching joyous worship, and praying a lot. They pray a whole lot.”

“I'll look like a student, won't I?”

“Yep. A young male yeshiva student, very beardless. No one will recognize you.”

She chuckled. “Brilliant.”

Then he showed her his new clothes—a businessman's leisure apparel—and the long list of Sterling-O'Keefe companies. She read some of the names aloud: OMNI-American Savings & Loan, located mostly in the western and southwestern United States. Presidents' Palace hotel-casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Gold Star Credit Resources, America's biggest credit-check company. Gold Star Rent-a-Car, an enormous
international company. She studied the list. “I don't get it. Is there a connection between Sterling-O'Keefe and Gordon and Bremner, or even Langley?”

Flores had been pacing back and forth across the room, his long bathrobe flopping against his bare legs.

“Langley!” He snapped his fingers.

“What?”

“I should've thought of it before. Who was a ‘founder' of Langley? One of the leading visionaries who turned the OSS into today's CIA?”

She stared at him. “John O'Keefe. ‘Red Jack' O'Keefe.”

“Sterling-
O'Keefe
.”

“O'Keefe's a common name, Asher.”

“Maybe, but Jack O'Keefe was Bremner's mentor. If Bremner's part of Sterling-O'Keefe, Jack O'Keefe could be, too.”

“But is O'Keefe still alive?”

“If he were dead, I'd have heard about it. There would've been tributes everywhere. He was the emperor of U.S. espionage, for Chrissakes. If we can find him—”

“We'll find him.”

“Christine Robitaille.” He resumed pacing. “He and Christine were lovers years ago. She told me about it once. Maybe she'll know where to find him.”

“The Languedoc must be watching her shop.”

“Yup. They'll know it's only a remote possibility I'll show up again, but they won't take any chances. Tomorrow I'll try to get a message to her and convince her to meet me somewhere. She's already saved my life once, years ago. I've got to trust someone to find O'Keefe. It's not like I can waltz up to the Languedoc and ask. She's my best bet. I won't talk to her unless she's clean.”

“Good. But if she didn't turn you in, how did those three goons find you at her shop?”

“My guess is Bremner. They had to have found out I tapped into the Denver slush fund to finance our trip over here, and that I used Gordon's code to do it. Bremner would have put a tracer on the code to see if I'd use it again. I pressed my luck too long.” He shrugged.

She told him her plans. “Tomorrow I'm going back to Café
Justine. It's a long shot, but maybe somebody there can tell me who that guy with the straw Panama is and where I can find him.”

“All right.” He stood behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and grimaced to himself. He couldn't stop her from going out just to keep him from losing her. “But if they expect to bring in the Carnivore tomorrow night, they're sweating nails trying to figure out how to get you back so they can put you on whatever diabolical program that ghoul Levine has prepared.”

She lifted her face. “Kiss me.”

He kissed her upside down.

“Merci beaucoup
. Kiss me again.” She stood, letting her robe fall open.

He slid his hands inside, up the long hips, the willowy waist, to her heavy breasts.

“Ummmm,” she hummed. “Ummmm. Ummmm.”

He bent her back, his robe fell open, and she felt the full length and heat of his male body like an intense sweet pain. He kissed her long and deep, and the ache, the need, within her spread hotter and hotter.

“This isn't what I'd planned,” he whispered hoarsely. He was caught, trapped in his own new future. There was no turning back.

“I know what you mean.” She panted, melted into him.

He pulled her back up, and his mouth fell on her throat.

She inhaled him, drew his scent, his essence deep into her soul. “Bed,” she said.

Tomorrow they could worry about tomorrow.

Chapter 45

Sunday

There was something wrong about the pitch-black hotel room. Sarah glanced at the illuminated dial on the alarm: 5:00
A.M.
Asher lay on his side facing her, his arm across her chest. Her breasts were naked. She felt like exposed prey.

Where was her Beretta?

Then she heard the sound again. It was a doorknob, soft, like the sound of Asher coming in while she was in the bathtub. She turned her head, whispered in his ear.

Instantly he was on his feet.

She stood close beside him so they could almost see one another in the inky night. “Let's try to get one alive.”

He pressed her Beretta into her hand and motioned her to take the closed, locked door that separated them from the adjoining room.

Naked, he padded to the hall door.

Asher Flores glanced only once in Sarah's direction. The room was so dark he couldn't see her. But he could imagine her, legs apart, solidly balanced, the Beretta ready. There was something enormously sexy about a competent female. Especially a bare-ass-naked female.

He felt around until he knew he was behind the door, where
the hall light wouldn't reveal him when it opened.

All his senses were alert. The initial rush of fear had come and gone, and now he waited calmly. He always felt excitement, too. Only a fool or a masochist did this kind of work without liking the excitement.

At last the door cracked open. The way the attack came would tell Asher whether the Carnivore was still coming in, whether Bremner still needed Sarah alive.

He could hear clicks at Sarah's door. Bremner's people were coordinated.

And then a figure dressed completely in black slipped inside Asher's door. Asher could hear the soft sounds of activity across the room where Sarah waited.

The hall light had shown the figure briefly, and Asher had frozen the image in his mind. The door sealed shut. Asher slammed the figure back against the wall and jammed his fist into the guy's gut so hard he could almost feel backbone.

The intruder doubled over and vomited, helpless. Asher gripped the back of his neck with one hand, marking the spot, and crashed his gun down with the other. The guy dropped to the floor and was silent. Next Asher pictured the arrangement of the room's furniture. He ran through the blackness toward Sarah's door. It was a mistake. He crashed heavily into someone.

“One got away!” Sarah's voice was clear but soft. She'd had two intruders, had taken out one, but not the other.

Asher wrestled with the one who'd gotten away. The guy was strong as a Caterpillar backhoe. Asher could hold onto no limb long enough to find purchase.

Suddenly the overhead light blazed on.

Sarah stood by the switch, nude and haughty. Instantly, Asher executed a
tai otoshi
body drop. As the man fell, Sarah ran to him and pointed her Beretta down at his nose.

“Where are your backups? Now!” she demanded.

The guy wore a black ski mask along with a black, skin-tight bodysuit. Even through the ski mask Asher could see his shock at the beautiful, nude woman who stood over him. For some guys it would be a sexual fantasy come true. But for this one, it was nothing but trouble.

Sarah moved her Beretta to the guy's groin and shoved. “I said
now
.” The intruder talked so fast his words spilled on top of each other. He described the positions of the four backups who waited outside: One in the corridor, one in the lobby, and two in the street. As Asher tied him, the agent snarled, “Bremner'll be in from D.C. soon, Flores, then you're fucking finished.”

“Keep talking, Howells,” Asher said. “How'd you find us?”

The guy lifted his head and looked left and right. Sarah was stripping the other two intruders, and the stench of vomit from the one Asher had knocked out permeated the room. As Asher and Sarah put on the black bodysuits of the other two agents, the one named Howells told them Languedoc personnel had been calling Paris hotels, examining guest-registration books, showing photos, and giving physical descriptions until sometime around 3:00
A.M.
, when the desk man at the Hotel Aphrodite had recognized Asher.

“Old-fashioned police work,” Sarah said as they tied the intruders.

“You bastard, Flores.” The guy on the floor glared up at him. “Fucking murderer. How could you kill your own people?”

“Bremner's the ‘fucking murderer.' ” Asher was throwing things into his old gym bag. “What's going down Monday, Howells?”

“I'll tell you shit.” But his eyes reacted, puzzled.

Sarah went into the closet and grabbed the sacks containing their new clothes.

Asher said, “You don't know about Monday, do you? Bremner's big operation? I'll bet Langley doesn't know either.”

“Bullshit.” Tied up like a pig at slaughter, the guy on the floor refused to believe anything bad of Hughes Bremner. “The Carnivore comes in tonight. Nothing's happening Monday. You're all bullshit and a goddamn murderer.”

Asher zipped his gym bag. “Hughes and Gordon set me up. Tell that to my old buddies at the Company. You want to do our country a favor? Stop Hughes Bremner.”

Sarah moved to the door. “Bremner's up to something so critical, so horrible, he's willing to sacrifice and murder his
own people. We're trying to find out what in hell's going on.”

Before the guy could respond, Asher gagged him. They surveyed the room one last time. Sarah turned off the light and cracked open the door. The hall was deserted.

Dressed in the intruders' black bodysuits, carrying their things, they slipped out, two smoothly moving shadows.

They found Bremner's backup man unconscious inside the stairwell. They looked at each other, but didn't stop to ask questions as they hurried down the stairs.

The older gentleman strolled down the hall of the Hotel Aphrodite in his bathrobe, rubbing his eyes, apparently too restless to sleep. He'd heard the scuffling in the young couple's room, just as earlier he'd heard several rounds of noisy sex. He'd enjoyed the vicarious sex thoroughly.

Now, if he wasn't mistaken—

Yes. The fire door was swinging shut. He counted to twenty, then silently opened it and peered over the unconscious agent and down the stairwell. The young pair, in black bodysuits, were tearing down the steps. Both carried weapons, and one hauled a battered gym bag.

He grinned. Whistling quietly, hands deep in his bathrobe pockets, he ambled back to his room. Last night he'd tried to get Sarah out of Je Suis Chez Moi before the bomb exploded, but she'd been too suspicious. Fortunately she'd moved fast enough to be thrown by the blast, not seriously hurt. His
compadres
had tracked her through the old cemetery, where she'd lost Dr. Levine's men, to Christine Robitaille's computer shop, and then here. Dear Christine. He remembered her with great affection. Once she'd been an extraordinarily lovely woman, but time, and her line of work, had not been kind.