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storm-tossed things in the roadway. I thanked him when I got out of the car
and joined the short line of impatient city folk waiting at the counter for
word about air service to New York.
It looked like a special direct flight would leave for La Guardia at 6P.M.
The day was a wash. My cell phone, uncharged for more than twenty-four hours,
was dead. The telephone kiosks, which afforded no privacy, were in steady use
by anxious travelers trying to find alternate ways to get to Providence,
Boston, Hartford, and points west. I spun the paperback rack in the gift shop
and found only the good books I had read in hardcover months earlier. There
was a British thriller by a writer I'd never tried before, so I settled in a
corner window seat and killed the time with crime fiction.
Somewhere in the northeast corridor, the airline had come up with a DC-3 to
lug us home. It rolled to a stop outside the terminal, looking as if it had
just come over the hump from Burma in a World War II flick. We boarded
quickly, climbing up the sloping aisle to get into our seats. The normally
short flight took almost ninety minutes, and it was close to 8P.M. when I
walked out of the New York terminal to hail a taxi.
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Hot running water. I stripped down and turned on the shower full force. Mud
was still caked between my toes and under each nail. I must have been a sight
to all of the evening's air travelers. My matted hair looked several shades
darker than before the storm, and I scrubbed for minutes until I could even
get a lather going.
Dried off and snug in a long nightshirt, I sat on the bed and played back the
eleven messages on the machine, hoping to hear one voice. I deleted Nina's
news about her son's admission to a Beverly Hills pre-k; my mother's concern
about the damage caused by the hurricane; three routine messages from Mike,
who wasn't really sure where to find me; an assortment of nonurgent friendly
calls; and found Jake on the ninth try.
"Hey, guess you decided to stay on after all." His voice sounded cool and
clipped, and I had missed him by less than half an hour. "I'm off for supper
with a friend. Be home for the weekend." Too much silence. "We need to talk,
Alex."
The one thing I needed less than root canal was to talk. Whatever happened to
action?
Good old action. Talk was going to expose every layer of difference between
us, every nitpicking reason we weren't good for each other. His walking in the
door and taking me in his arms and making me feel sexy and safe and adored was
what I wanted more than anything at this very moment. Talk was as overrated as
renewing marriage vows on top of a Hawaiian volcano to assuage a cheating
husband's guilt.
No answer at Mike's place. I put on some music and sat at my desk, rereading
the case files on Paige Vallis-the rape and the homicide-to see whether I
could make sense of the directions things had taken in her life. No sense, no
nothing. I moved to the mountain of bills growing beside me and took out my
checkbook.
I crawled into bed before ten, hit with the exhaustion that follows shock and
stress. Sleep helped, and I was up by 8A.M. on Saturday, ready for a better
day.
The first call was from Mercer Wallace. "Any trouble getting back into town?"
"The only easy thing that's happened in days. Look, I've got to-"
He and I were speaking over each other. I heard him say "I have news for-" but
he stopped and asked me to finish what I had started.
"I've got to tell you what happened to me during the storm." I described the
way my predator had circled the house trying to get in, and how I had escaped
him. Unlike Chip Streeter, Mercer understood that this was no amateur, no
coincidence, no joke.
"I'll get on the Spike Logan angle. Check out his car, his uncle. Make sure
Hoyt was really in Nantucket on the boat. Speak to the troopers and see what
they came up with."
"I'm sorry I jumped in over you. You had something to tell me?" I asked.
"Plate came back yesterday on that car you thought you saw Robelon driving
when you chased the guy with the gun out of Federal Plaza. It's a rental."
"To Robelon?"
"Nope. Ever heard of a Lionel Webster?"
"No. Who is he?"
"I think he's the guy who's pretending to be Harry Strait. My lieutenant ran
Webster last night and there's all kinds of info flooding back in this
morning. He's ordered us to work overtime on it all weekend. Best I can tell,
Webster is some kind of soldier of fortune. A mercenary. Services go to the
highest bidder. Knows the caves of Tora Bora as well as he does Paris."
"Armed services?" I thought of Andrew Tripping and his fascination with all
things military.
"West Point grad. Taught there for a while until he was kicked out. Stripped
of his commission-"
"For?"
"You're thinking faster than I can read. I'm not sure it gives a reason in
these papers. We'll get him checked out ASAP."
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"Can you fax over a picture?"
"Hold your horses, Ms. Cooper. You might have to make an ID, you know. You're
not getting any advance look at my mug shots."
"The buzz cut fits with the military background, Mercer. I wish we knew if the
U.S. armed services had anything to do with King Farouk." The pieces of the
puzzle were twisting in my mind.
"Only thing I know about is the Agency and its involvement in Cairo. Not the
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