Burnt Sienna

1

“How do you know these things?” Derek insisted.

Sienna was sprawled in a chair in the library, where Derek had pushed her as soon as they entered.

“What things? I don’t know what you mean. All I did was tell you about a disturbing dream I had.”

“In which you fell from a balcony and you were also riding a pony.”

“No. Not in the same… I woke and drifted off. Several dreams blurred together.”

“What color was the pony?”

Sienna strained to remember the photograph. “It was dark. But it had a white mane.”

“In the Alps, you said.”

“Yes.” Sienna shook her head from side to side. “Why are you doing this? Quit bullying me. If you’re going to punish me, do it. But stop this -”

“How old were you when you had the pony?”

“I didn’t say I had a pony. I said I dreamed about -”

“Damn it, how old were you?”

There had been a handwritten date on the photograph: 1949.

The date on Christina’s birth certificate had been 1939.

“… Ten.”

“And who gave you the pony?”

This is the end, Sienna thought. If I guess wrong… The obvious answer was, “My parents,” but something in Derek’s insistent gaze told her that the question had a trick, that the pony’s relevance was fiercely personal. Why should it matter who gave the pony? Unless…

“My brother.”

Derek shuddered.

“Why am I having these dreams?” Sienna demanded.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Not now!” Derek shouted.

“Do you want me to meet Ahmed at the airport?” Potter’s voice came from behind the door. “Or do you want the guards to bring him?”

“Meet him!”

“But how do you want me to act? Friendly or distant?”

“Whatever you want! Just leave us the hell alone!”

After a pause, footsteps retreated along the outside corridor.

Derek swung toward Sienna. “Who told you about the balcony and the pony?”

“Nobody! They were in my dream!”

“What else did you dream?”

“I was at a carnival.”

“What kind of -”

“A fiesta. In a street. People were in costumes.”

“Where?”

The crowd in the photograph’s background had looked Latin. Sienna remembered another photograph in which a gigantic statue of Christ, His arms outstretched, had loomed on a ridge behind Christina. The only statue like that she knew of was in -

“Rio.”

The city was famous for its carnivals, but Derek didn’t react.

God help me, I guessed wrong. Sienna tensed.

“Rio.” Derek glared.

He’s going to kill me now.

“How Christina loved Rio.” Derek yanked her up from the chair. “Who told you about my sister?”

“Your sister? I didn’t know you have a -”

“Had!”

“Her name was Christina?” Sienna asked.

“She died a long time ago. Are you trying to convince me you’re dreaming about her?”

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything! I never heard of her until you -”

“Do you think I won’t kill you because I’d feel it was like killing my sister?”

“Killing your sister?”

The look in Derek’s eyes was terrifying.

“Did Christina fall from a balcony? Did I dream about how she died?”

Derek shook with anger. “As much as I adored her, she had a way of making me furious. Just as you’re making me furious.”

With a chill, Sienna realized what had happened on the balcony that night. “In the dream, I was pushed.”

Derek raised his hands.

“Please, don’t kill me again,” Sienna whispered.

2

Distraught, Potter watched Nice’s airport enlarge below him as the helicopter descended. He was intentionally early to meet Ahmed. Anything to get away from Derek. To be shouted at. To be treated no better than a servant. When this is over, I’m leaving, Potter thought.

The helicopter set down in its usual far corner of the airport. After getting Ahmed, Potter would return to the estate, and by this time tomorrow, he thought, when the woman is taken care of, when business is settled and I bring Ahmed back to the airport, I’ll keep going. I saved my money. I planned for when Derek would turn against me. Now he’ll find out what it’s like to be on his own.

“We have plenty of time. Refuel it,” Potter told the pilot. He turned to his two guards. “We’ll go into the terminal.”

But instead of moving, they stared past him toward the open hatch, where three men in mechanic’s coveralls leaned in, aiming pistols.

One of the guards almost drew his weapon, but after a further look at the sound suppressors on the pistols, he remained still.

“Think,” one of the armed men said. He was heavy-set, with short blond hair. “Very slowly, using the tips of your fingers, remove your weapons and set them on the floor. Good. If you do this right, nobody’s going to die.”

“Who…?” Potter started to ask.

The man ignored him. A van pulled up next to the helicopter. “Everybody out. You’re taking a ride.”

The guards looked apprehensively at each other.

“Hey, if we’d wanted to, we could have killed you,” the man said. “Play nice and you’ll get out of this alive.” He made a sharp gesture toward the van. “Move.”

The pilot and the guards reluctantly obeyed, but as Potter started to follow, the man said, “Not you.”

“If it’s money you want, I -”

“Sit down. We’ll soon be taking our own ride.”

Seeing the pilot get out of the helicopter and into the van, Potter said, “But who’s going to fly the -”

“I am,” a voice said.

Disturbed by its familiarity, Potter turned toward the pilot’s hatch, where a man with a severely bruised face appeared, but even with the bruises, the face was instantly recognizable. Potter’s stomach contracted.

Malone.

3

Ahmed’s pilot announced they would soon be landing. But not soon enough, Ahmed thought. The four-hour flight from Istanbul had seemed interminable. He didn’t like Bellasar. He didn’t like to travel. Being away from the sounds and smells of home always put him on edge. Whatever Bellasar’s demonstration was, it had better be worth the trouble of coming to see it. If there was one more hint that Bellasar’s affairs were out of control…

Ahmed’s jet set down. Bellasar had promised that passing through customs and immigration would be swift, and encouragingly, that was the case. But when Ahmed emerged from the processing area, neither Bellasar nor Potter was in sight. If this was an indication of how the meeting was going to…

“Mr. Ahmed?”

A heavyset man with short blond hair emerged from the crowd. He wore a suit and looked apologetic as he extended his hand. “I’m Raymond Baker. I’m sorry for the slight delay. Mr. Bellasar sent me to get you.”

“He couldn’t come himself?”

“Unfortunately, he was occupied. He sends his apologies. He’s so determined to make your visit successful that he’s personally taking care of the final details.”

“I’ve not met you before. Why wasn’t Alex Potter sent to meet me?”

“I’m new on the staff. Mr. Potter had some security matters to take care of. He’ll meet us at the helicopter. If you and your escorts” – the man nodded toward the two guards Ahmed had brought with him – “will accompany me. It’s a short flight to Mr. Bellasar’s estate.”

Ahmed hesitated, annoyed that Bellasar had sent an underling to greet him but gratified by the man’s subservient manner. “The sooner this meeting is over, the sooner I’ll be on my way back to Istanbul.”

“In that case, you’ll be pleased that Mr. Bellasar has made arrangements to be certain there won’t be any delays in your return flight. If you’ll follow me…”

4

Approaching the helicopter, Ahmed couldn’t help frowning when he saw Potter waiting stiffly next to the open hatch. Ahmed had never liked the man’s perpetual disapproving look. His presence turned everything dark around him. Potter didn’t even extend his hand as Ahmed neared him. Typical. I’ll rot before I extend my hand first, Ahmed thought.

As he started to get in, Ahmed blanched when two men in coveralls turned from the helicopter and put a gun in the small of the back of each guard. A van pulled up. Five seconds later, the guards were in the vehicle, the men in coveralls had gotten in with them, and the van was driving away. The speed with which everything had happened was bewildering.

“I couldn’t warn you,” Potter said. He tilted his head toward the interior of the helicopter, where two other men in coveralls pointed weapons at them.

“Inside,” the man who had met Ahmed in the airport said. His right hand was beneath his suit coat, as if ready to draw a pistol at the slightest provocation.

“Who are you? What do you -”

“Shut up and get in the helicopter.”

Pushed inside, Ahmed was searched, buckled roughly into a safety harness, then handcuffed along with Potter to a bar on the side of the fuselage. But as dismaying as all this was, nothing prepared him for what he felt when the pilot turned to look back at him, revealing a face swollen and purple with bruises.

“Welcome to Payback Airlines.”

5

“Potter’s and Ahmed’s bodyguards are handcuffed and having a nice morphine sleep in the back of the van,” Jeb told Malone as he hurried to fasten his copilot’s harness. “Our local contact will drive them to a secluded campground and wait to hear from us.”

“And twenty-four hours from now, if he still hasn’t heard from us?”

“He’ll know everything went to hell and he’ll let them go.”

“But everything won’t go to hell.” Malone’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “Except for Bellasar.”

He radioed the control tower, getting clearance for takeoff. Then he flicked some switches. The rotors started to turn.

“When I was taken to Bellasar’s estate and later when I stole the chopper to escape, I was puzzled by an extra panel of switches I couldn’t account for,” Malone said.

The rotors spun faster.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what they’re for,” Malone said louder, in order to be heard above the engine’s roar. “When the chopper crashed and the gas tank exploded, the blast was greater than it should have been. Finally I think I understand.”

“What are you getting at?”

“It’s just what you’d expect an arms dealer to do. He went after me with four-wheel-drive cars that were actually assault vehicles equipped with machine guns. Why wouldn’t he modify his helicopters the same way?”

“You’re telling me -”

“This thing has retractable weapons. It’s a gun-ship.”

6

“What else did you dream?”

“I can’t concentrate anymore. I need to lie down. I -”

Derek slapped her.

She stumbled back.

“What you need to do is what you’re told. What else did you dream?”

“I can’t remember.”

Derek slapped her harder.

“You promised you’d never hurt me!” she shouted.

“That was before you ran off with -”

“I meant Christina! You promised not to hurt her again. Tomorrow.”

“What?”

“She died tomorrow.”

Derek slapped her a third time. “Tell me how you know so much about -”

“There was a yacht.” Sienna strained to remember more of the photograph.

Derek froze, his hand drawn back to strike her again.

The photograph had shown Christina as a voluptuous adult, wearing a bikini, sunbathing on the deck of a yacht. Behind her, the yacht’s name had been stenciled on a life preserver.

“The yacht was called Christina. There were parties and -”

“Always parties! Christina couldn’t get enough parties! Whenever my back was turned… She betrayed me, the same as you did.”

“It had nothing to do with betraying you! I had to try to save my life!”

Derek’s glare remained riveted on her, then wavered, as if her logic had made an impression on him.

“Why does it have to be this way?” Sienna pleaded. “Why can’t we start over?”

Derek studied her.

“Why can’t we forgive each other? Five years ago, we loved each other. Why can’t we go back?” She took a tentative step toward him, holding out a hand to touch him.

“What else did you dream?”

“What?”

“Tell me how you know so much about my sister.”

Sienna’s spirit plummeted.

“The balcony, the pony, the carnival, the yacht, the time and date of…” Derek’s eyes widened. “Jesus, you saw them.”

“What?”

“You saw them!”

“I don’t know what you’re -”

Derek grabbed the hand she’d extended and yanked her viciously toward the doorway. She struggled to resist, but his strength was too powerful. He flung the door open so hard, it slammed against bookshelves.

“Derek, no, what are you -”

He forced her along the corridor, into the vestibule, and up the curving staircase. As she resisted, his next tug made her lose her balance and drop to her knees. He yanked even harder, dragging her.

The first landing.

The second.

“Stop!” Sienna pleaded.

He kept pulling her.

“Where are you taking me?”

The top floor. Jerking her upright, he reached the door next to his bedroom, pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and shoved it open. Shadows beckoned.

“No, I don’t want to -”

He shoved her inside, turned on the lights, ignored the portraits on the wall, and forced her toward the urn. “Christina,” he murmured. He spun her toward the wall of photographs. “You have no idea how much I loved her.” He stared at the numerous photos, scanning them, finding the ones he wanted. “There. On the balcony, on the pony, at the carnival, and on the yacht.” He flipped open the scrapbook, turning to the final page. “The time and date when she died. That’s how you knew about my sister! Somehow, you’ve been in here before.”

“No, I swear. I didn’t know anything about -”

“‘Five years ago, we loved each other. Why can’t we go back?’” Derek mocked.

“I meant it.”

“Oh, of course.”

“What happened between us?” Sienna asked. “Why did you turn against me?”

For a moment, Derek’s eyes cleared, as if he finally understood how wrong everything was.

“Christina happened,” he said.

His eyes again black with fury, he dragged her out of the room. “Ahmed will soon be here. Finally you’re going to be of use to me.”

7

The speeding chopper cleared the ridge and came into view of the valley. Bellasar’s estate was hunkered in the middle.

“We’d better be right about this,” Jeb said. “Back at the airport was risky, but now…”

Malone adjusted the microphone on his helmet. “Bellasar’s expecting the chopper to come back with Ahmed. Here it is.”

“He’ll also expect a radio message, some kind of identification before he lets this thing get closer. You don’t know what you’re supposed to say.”

Malone nodded. When he had flown here with Bellasar a lifetime ago, he had heard the pilot speak to the estate, but the pilot had used French, and Malone had no idea what he had said.

He adjusted the radio’s frequency until he heard a male voice saying something in French. Even with the accent, some of the words were close enough to English that Malone understood he was being asked to identify himself.

He tapped the microphone a couple of times, then brushed a piece of paper across it, murmuring a few of the French words he had just heard, trying to create the impression that radio problems were breaking up his signal.

He switched off the radio.

The helicopter flew closer to the estate.

“This had better work,” Jeb said. “An arms dealer’s likely to have missiles down there.”

“Probably. But he won’t risk killing Ahmed unless he has to. So far, we’ve done nothing to indicate we’re a threat.” Malone looked back at Jeb’s partner and the others who were helping him. “Ready?”

The tension on Dillon’s face was all too familiar from when Malone had prepared for missions in the military. He switched his attention to Ahmed and Potter, handcuffed to the side of the chopper. Their expressions were stark with fear.

“Buckled in nice and tight?” Malone asked. He jerked on the controls. Abruptly the chopper tilted and spun.

“Jesus!” Jeb had known this was coming, but he hadn’t been prepared for how closely Malone’s maneuvers would simulate a chopper that was out of control.

“Gas masks.” Malone tilted the chopper dizzyingly in the opposite direction.

Each man had one. They slipped them over their heads.

“Might as well let Potter and Ahmed have one also,” Malone said. He took off his pilot’s helmet, put on his gas mask, then made the helicopter waver so alarmingly that anybody on the ground would assume it was close to crashing.

“Hatches!”

Dillon and the others opened them.

“Smoke grenades!”

“Ready!”

“Do it!”

Two grenades were dropped to the chopper’s floor. Muffled whumps were followed by sudden gray smoke that filled the chopper. For a moment, Malone feared that he had miscalculated, that the smoke swirling around him would get so thick he wouldn’t be able to see to control the unstable maneuvers he was forcing the chopper to perform. If the charade wasn’t convincing to the guards on Bellasar’s estate…

Wind from the open hatches cleared the smoke, allowing him to see the estate as the chopper wavered onward. Most of the smoke now billowed outside, making it seem that an accident had happened on board. Malone imagined the frantic questions the radio controller was trying to send him.

He spun. He tilted. All the while, he moved closer to the buildings and gardens of the estate. He was near enough now to see guards down there. On paths, among trees and shrubs, they stared up in confusion.

At a height of a thousand feet, he wavered over the estate. Some of the guards ran for cover, afraid the chopper was about to crash on them.

“Ready?” Malone shouted to the back.

Dillon opened a box.

From the corner of his vision, Malone saw him throw out a quart-sized glass container of a type used in laboratories. It tumbled through the air, easily visible because of the white powder in it. As guards hurried to avoid it, the container shattered on a sidewalk. Malone imagined the noise it made and the consternation on the guards’ faces as the powder burst into the air and the day’s breeze carried it toward them. A few whose curiosity was stronger than their apprehension came close to investigate. Malone knew that when they saw the sturdy label keeping some of the shattered pieces of glass together, they would stumble back and panic. Even in English, the message was unmistakable. CAUTION: ANTHRAX. BIOLOGICAL HAZARD. The skull and crossbones symbol was equally unmistakable.

Smoke spewing from the chopper, Malone tilted toward other areas of the estate. As more glass containers plummeted, he switched his attention toward the tennis court and the area of the first impact. Amid the drifting white powder, guards raced away. He imagined them holding their breath. A few of them shouted warnings. Guards who weren’t near the impact zone put greater distance between them. A container shattered among those guards, who raced in a different direction, while another container broke ahead of them.

Five, six, seven. As Malone guided the chopper’s erratic path over the property, more and more containers smashed on the grounds, white powder spewing. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. The mansion, the Cloister, the stable, the swimming pool, and the weapons-testing range had blotches of white on them. Seventeen, eighteen. More guards rushed to escape. Some jumped into vehicles and sped toward the gates.

Until now, Malone had relied on the double distraction of the apparently about-to-crash chopper and the falling containers to keep the guards from firing at him. Believing they were under attack from a biological weapon, few had overcome their primal fear enough to get off a few shots before they ran in panic. But even a few were too many. Malone assumed that the chopper was armored, but he knew from experience that it wasn’t invulnerable – when he and Sienna had used the other chopper to escape, a barrage of gunfire from the guards had managed to disable it. Now, as bullets whacked against the fuselage, he needed a reinforcement that the estate was under attack from biological and chemical weapons.

“Kick the smoke grenades out!”

The men got rid of the ones on the floor. As the air in the chopper cleared, they pulled the pins on other grenades and hurled them to the ground. But these were tear-gas grenades, their dense haze blossoming across lawns and gardens, forcing the guards to race even harder.

“Close the hatches!”

Malone sped from the estate, then swung to face it. He flicked four of the switches that had puzzled him earlier. En route from Nice, he had experimented, learning what did what.

Ports opened on each side of the chopper. Machine guns swung out. If they were anything like what Malone had been familiar with in the military, each was capable of firing six thousand 30-mm rounds a minute. Above them, launchers equipped with 2.75-inch folding-fin rockets emerged. Perfect for the dictator who loves to surprise his enemies, Malone thought.

Now it was time for Bellasar to get a surprise.

The haze from the tear gas obscured the grounds. It’ll also obscure the chopper, Malone thought. Firing both machine guns, he swooped down, unable to see the damage he was causing but knowing he was destroying everything in his path. Careful not to hit the château or the Cloister, where Sienna or the biological weapon might be, he launched a rocket. Another. Even with the roar of the chopper, he heard the rockets explode among the guards. When he turned to face the estate from the opposite direction, he saw flames amid the smoke and the tear gas.

“Potter!”

No answer.

“Damn it, Potter, you know what you’re supposed to do! Make the call!”

Malone attacked again. As the machine guns thundered, so many bullets streaked down at once, they became moving columns of devastation. Behind each, a line of dust and shredded wreckage flew into the air, mixing with the smoke and the gas. He must have hit a munitions area. The shock wave from a huge explosion shook the chopper, creating more smoke, a fireball rising from it.

“Potter!”

Still no answer.

“So help me God, Potter, if you don’t call him, we’ll throw you out!”

Muscles cramping with fury, Malone launched another rocket. It streaked toward an antiaircraft bunker. The fiery blast sent concrete and metal flying. Skirting smoke from the crater, spraying guards who aimed toward the chopper, he reached the far end of the estate, swung, and again faced his target.

Hovering, he glared back at Potter, whose cuffed hands held a cell phone awkwardly to his ear.

“Yes,” Potter said into the phone. “Six men, plus Malone and Ahmed.” Seeing the rage on Malone’s bruised face, Potter flinched, afraid of what Malone would do to him for telling Bellasar who was in the chopper. “Malone wants to talk to you. Derek, this couldn’t be helped. I’m sorry.” Whatever Bellasar said to him was so insulting that Potter looked like a dog that had been beaten. But humiliation wasn’t all his expression communicated as Dillon took the phone from him and gave it to Malone. Potter’s anger was unmistakable. His voice was strangled. “He shouldn’t talk to me that way. Kill the son of a bitch.”

Malone sent another rocket into the smoke, the explosion rumbling. Only then did he press the phone to his ear. “Have I got your attention?”

8

“Totally.” In the Cloister, Bellasar stared through a window at the smoke-obscured helicopter. Sienna, too dazed to know what he said, lay in a corner. “You’re supposed to be dead,” he said into his cell phone.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Not at all. It gives me the pleasure of killing you a second time. I assume you’ve come for my wife?”

“She’d better still be alive.”

“Or?”

Through the haze outside, Bellasar saw the blur of a rocket spewing from the helicopter. In a fiery roar, it struck the château’s terrace, flagstones erupting.

“I’ll have it rebuilt,” Bellasar said into the phone. “I’m not over there, by the way. I’m at the Cloister. But think twice about launching another rocket. The love of your life is in here with me.”

“She’s alive?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

As Sienna struggled to her feet, Bellasar punched her, knocking her down. Her groan was loud enough to be heard through the phone.

“I want to talk to her!” Malone said.

“If she can.” Bellasar peered down at her. “Guess what, my dear? Your boyfriend’s on the phone.”

Sienna blinked up, dimly comprehending.

“That’s right. Your boyfriend. The famous artist. He’s come calling. Isn’t that thoughtful of him? Say a few words.” He lowered the phone.

Frowning as if afraid she was losing her mind, she took it.

“Hurry, don’t keep him waiting. He’s come quite a distance.”

She blinked in confusion. Apprehensive that this was a trick, she raised the phone to her ear. “Chase?”

“Are you all right?”

“My God, is it really you? I thought you were dead! I thought -”

Bellasar yanked the phone from her hand. “I said ‘a few words,’ not a speech. Satisfied?” he asked into the phone.

“Let her go.”

“I can’t think of a reason why I should.”

“I can. Do something for me. Call the following telephone number.” Malone recited it.

The number was so familiar, Bellasar felt uneasy. “What are you -”

“Just call that number in Paris. An associate of mine is with your next wife and her father.”

“What?”

“Unless you do what I want, my associate is going to show them a dossier about your three previous marriages and how you killed your wives. He’s going to tell them how you planned to kill your present wife. He’s going to tell them that you and your sister were lovers, that you murdered her, and that your wives all looked like her. He has photographs.”

Outrage made Bellasar speechless.

“Your fiancé won’t be able to bear the sight of you, let alone be married to you. Her father will be so furious about the danger you present to his daughter that he’ll stop supplying weapons to you. Of course, he’s only one of your manufacturers, but a father whose daughter’s honor has been assaulted will spread the word. You’re fanatical about your privacy. It’ll be destroyed. I’m willing to bet other suppliers will stop doing business with you, especially when they find out you’ve been compromised by the CIA.”

“The CIA?”

“If anything happens to Sienna, I’m going to spread the word that the CIA knows everything you’re doing, that your business is out of control. No one will trust you. If you want to keep being an arms merchant, you’ll have to sell cheap handguns to dope dealers on street corners.”

Bellasar glared.

“Once you lose your power,” Malone said, “everybody you stomped on, everybody who holds a grudge against you, will pay you back. You ruined my life. Now you’re going to find out what it feels like on the other side.”

“And if I do what you want, the conversations you’re threatening me with will never happen.” Bellasar’s voice was contemptuous.

“That’s right.”

“You expect me to believe you won’t tell the woman in Paris? To protect her from me?”

“You’ll protect her yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll break off the relationship. I won’t need to tell her anything.”

“And in exchange, you get Sienna. But how can I trust the men with you to keep the agreement? Since when does the CIA care about private arrangements?”

“This isn’t a sanctioned operation. These men work for me. They’ll do as I ask.”

“And that’ll be the end of it?”

“Not quite,” Malone said. “You’ve got a biological weapon. The pressure won’t be off you until I make sure it’s destroyed.”

Bellasar’s fury reached a peak. “I’m bringing her out.”

He broke the connection and swung toward Sienna. “Get up!” He dragged her to her feet and shoved her from the room. But instead of heading toward the outside door, he forced her downstairs toward the basement.

And the basement below that one.

9

Watching the tear gas disperse, seeing guards regroup, Malone fired a burst from the machine guns. Trees and shrubs blew apart. Bodies flew.

“It’s been three minutes! Where is he?”

Strafing the grounds, Malone sped to the landing pad, hovered, turned in a circle, and leveled everything around him. The moment he set down the chopper, Jeb, Dillon, and the others charged out, firing. Although the chopper’s rotors dispersed the tear gas, the men still wore gas masks, hoping to intimidate their opponents by continuing to pretend that the powder they’d dropped was anthrax.

As Malone hooked tear-gas grenades to his belt, Potter yelled, “What about us? Unlock these handcuffs!”

Malone didn’t bother answering, just grabbed an assault rifle, jumped down, and raced toward the Cloister.

Behind him, he heard gunfire, Jeb and his men giving the guards another reason to run from the estate. As a bullet zinged past, Malone ducked to a shattered tree and fired at a guard who showed himself a second too long. Malone’s volley hit him in the chest, knocking him into the swimming pool.

He scanned the wreckage, searching for other targets. Statues had been decapitated. Ruptured fountains gushed water. There! He fired at a guard who rose to aim from behind the rubble of a column. As the man fell, Malone spun, saw no other targets, and raced nearer to the Cloister, only to dive behind another shattered tree as the main door swung open.

“Malone!” Bellasar shouted from inside.

“Where is she?”

“Have you still got your cell phone?” Staying hidden, Bellasar shouted numbers.

What’s he doing? Stomach cramping with apprehension, Malone sank lower behind the shattered tree. He took the phone from his windbreaker and pressed the numbers he’d been given.

“Chase?” Sienna answered immediately, frightened.

“Are you okay? Where are you?”

“In the Cloister’s basement. Locked in a room.”

“What room?”

“I don’t know! He blindfolded me once he brought me down here!”

Malone tried to keep his voice calm. “Don’t be afraid. I’m coming to get you.”

He pressed the disconnect button and shouted toward the Cloister’s open door, “Bellasar!”

No response.

“Bellasar!”

Silence, except for gunshots in the distance.

Malone pulled a tear-gas grenade from his belt, freed its pin, and hurled it through the open door.

Vapor filled the opening.

He darted toward the side of the Cloister, used the butt of his rifle to smash a basement window, and threw a tear-gas grenade into the opening.

As vapor filled the room below, he raised his gas mask from where it dangled around his neck. He put it on, knocked the remaining shards from the window, and climbed through. At the bottom, he aimed around the haze-filled room, seeing no targets, hearing no coughing. He rushed to the side of an open doorway, tossed his final grenade into a corridor, and followed it, stalking invisibly through the dense gas. He still didn’t hear any coughing. Bellasar couldn’t have anticipated a tear-gas attack. He wasn’t likely to have had a gas mask in easy reach. Was Bellasar using Sienna as a decoy while he ducked out the back of the building?

Bellasar doesn’t matter! I have to find Sienna!

He moved along the corridor, checking each room.

Empty.

He reached stairs that rose toward the gas-filled entrance.

Other stairs led down. Malone followed them.

The temperature cooled. The rocks that formed the walls became larger, the construction cruder, older, as if from a thousand years ago.

He came to the brightly lit bottom, where a shiny metal door blocked his way. Silently praying that it wasn’t locked, he pulled, exhaled when it budged, and stepped carefully to the side as it swung open.

Was Bellasar hiding on the other side, waiting to shoot him?

Malone took off his gas mask, held it at head level, and inched it around the doorjamb as if peering beyond the door. No bullet struck the mask from his hand. He readied himself, lunged through the doorway, and dropped to a crouch, aiming.

No target presented itself.

Instead, he saw the bright corridor of a laboratory. Along each side, windows showed research rooms. He hurried along, not seeing anyone.

“Sienna!”

She didn’t shout back.

“Sienna!”

He came to another steel door. It, too, was unlocked, but this time when he lunged through, aiming, he found the two Russian bioweapons experts, their faces ashen.

As he straightened, they stared from him toward a window, beyond which was another window.

“Sienna!”

She didn’t react. Past the first window, a corridor, and a second window, she sat at a table, looking dismally at her hands. Her face was battered.

“Sienna!”

“She can’t hear you,” said the stoop-shouldered Russian whom Malone had seen arrive by helicopter so long ago. His English was thickly accented, his tone heavy with discouragement. “She can’t see you, either. The glass on her window works only one way.”

Malone rushed toward a door, tugged, but couldn’t budge it. He pulled with all his strength.

“It won’t do any good,” the Russian said. “Even if you had a key. Not for six hours.”

“Six hours?”

Malone pounded the butt of his rifle against the glass. The window trembled. He pounded harder, but the glass wouldn’t yield.

“You’re wasting your time,” the Russian said. “You can’t get through that glass with a sledgehammer or a bullet. To be doubly sure, she’s in a chamber within a chamber. Anything to prevent a leak.”

“Leak?” Malone felt dizzy.

“I never believed he’d do it.” The Russian looked dazed. “Bellasar said he was going to make an example to the man he was negotiating with, but I never dreamed…”

“An example? Jesus, what did he -”

A phone rang in an office behind him.

Malone stared at it. As it rang again, he suddenly knew whose voice he would hear. Rushing in, he answered it. “You bastard, how do I get her out of there?”

“You can’t,” Bellasar said. “Not for six hours.”

“Six hours?” Again that time limit. Malone vaguely remembered having been told about its significance. When? Who had told him? “What’s so damned important about -” His skin turned cold when his memory cleared. Laster. At the Virginia safe house.

“What makes the weapon so unique is that Gribanov and Bulganin genetically engineered the smallpox virus so it can’t infect anyone unless it combines with another virus, a benign but rare one,” Laster had said. “You release the benign virus first. As soon as the target population is infected, the lethal virus is then released.” The benign virus had a six-hour life span, Laster had continued. After that, even if you had smallpox, you couldn’t spread it to anyone who hadn’t come in contact with the benign virus within the previous six hours. The time limit was a way of controlling the weapon and keeping it from spreading beyond the target area.

“I promised I’d give her to you,” Bellasar said, “but I didn’t guarantee in what condition.”

“You released both viruses at once?” Malone’s legs felt weak.

“Tell anyone anything you want about me. It won’t make a difference. When my enemies understand what I’m capable of, they’ll be twice as afraid of me.”

“You exposed her to smallpox?” Malone screamed.

10

Raging, he charged up the stairs. I’ll catch him! I’ll get my hands on his throat! I’ll – But as Malone neared the top, he heard gunfire, not just the rattle of assault rifles but the roar of the chopper’s machine guns. The whoosh of a rocket was followed by an explosion. At the top, the gas had dissipated. Rushing from the Cloister, Malone stared to the left, toward where he had last seen Jeb and his men. Dust, flames, and smoke obscured his vision.

The chopper wasn’t where he had left it. A rumble cramped his muscles. On his left, the haze dissipated as whirling blades and the chopper appeared. Like malignant growths, a new array of weapons emerged from its belly. It stopped a hundred feet up and a hundred yards away. Even at a distance, Bellasar’s stark features were vivid behind the Plexiglas. From a loudspeaker beneath the fuselage, his voice boomed. “I don’t sell equipment I can’t handle!”

Before Malone could run back to the Cloister, a burst from a machine gun tore a crater behind him. The force of it threw him to the ground as dirt, stones, and redirected bullets flew around him. He rolled to get farther from the crater, only to see the chopper alter its angle of fire, a machine gun tearing up another crater, this one to the right of him, the chaos making his ears ring.

He could have killed me! The son of a bitch is toying with me!

Frantic, Malone pivoted as if to run to the left, but the moment Bellasar guided the chopper that way, Malone changed direction and raced to the right.

Away from the Cloister.

Away from Jeb and his men, if they were still alive.

Toward the weapons-testing range.

Behind him, he heard the chopper’s motors change pitch as Bellasar pursued him. Even with the ringing in his ears, he heard it come so close, he had to dive to the ground, the chopper speeding over him, wind from it ruffling his hair. Before Bellasar could turn and come after him again, Malone scrambled to his feet and raced onward.

This part of the estate hadn’t been damaged by Malone’s attack. He charged closer to the weapons-testing range, using hedges, trees, and bushes to provide cover. The trees to his left disappeared, the machine guns vaporizing them. He dove to the ground an instant before the hedges between which he’d been running burst into pieces, specks of leaves and branches filling the air, the chopper swooping over.

Again, before Bellasar could turn, Malone sprang to his feet and ran. Beyond one last line of shrubs, he rushed into the open, reaching the wooden stalls of the testing area. To his right was the.50-caliber machine gun Bellasar had threatened him with. But as Malone tried to reach it, Bellasar fired, dirt and grass flying, a trough appearing between Malone and the weapon.

Malone tried again, and again Bellasar’s bullets cut off his route. The bastard’s enjoying himself. Furious, Malone spun in another direction. Beyond the stalls was the mock village Bellasar and his clients used for target practice. It had been rebuilt since Malone had last seen it. He sprinted toward one of the stalls, flicked the switch Potter had used months earlier, and charged toward the suddenly animated village, realistic-looking soldiers, civilians, and vehicles now moving along the streets.

A volley from a machine gun tore up grass on his right. Veering to the left but continuing to race toward the village, Malone tensed in dread of the volley that would be aimed in that direction. Trying to time it, he swung to the right an instant before the next volley devastated the grass to his left, but now the bullets hit closer to him. Bellasar was tiring of the game.

The village loomed. Malone zigzagged across the final twenty yards, dove over a stone wall, landed hard, gasped from the pain in his ribs, then squirmed frantically toward the corner of a stone building, where he pressed himself behind a pile of rubble. Both machine guns firing, the helicopter attacked the village. It blew a gap in the wall, destroyed the corner of the house, and heaved up the cobblestones in a street farther along.

The moment the chopper sped over the tops of the buildings, Malone raced along the street. Before Bellasar could turn and see him, he darted left into a courtyard and sprawled behind another wall. His chest heaved. Sweat dripped from his face. When he wiped it, his hand came away bloody, and he realized the concussion of the near hits from the machine guns had made his nose bleed.

Bellasar skimmed the village, searching. “Don’t think you can hide!” his voice boomed from the loudspeaker. “This chopper has night-vision and heat-sensor equipment! As soon as it gets dark, I’ll have no trouble picking up your heat signature!”

Malone studied a military Jeep filled with mannequins dressed as soldiers. The Jeep was on a track that moved the vehicle along a street. Other mannequins dressed as villagers were on similar tracks that made them appear to walk.

“And don’t think you can wait for me to run out of fuel!” Bellasar’s voice thundered. “Before that happens, I’ll level this place!”

A flatbed truck filled with mannequins dressed as workers was so realistic that Malone had the start of an idea, interrupted by an explosion as a rocket blew the truck apart. It heaved, chunks flying in all directions. Burning mannequins, many without arms and heads, flipped through the air. A fireball soared. As black smoke drifted over him, Malone’s nostrils contracted from the stench of cordite, scorched metal, and burning gasoline.

Burning gasoline? Had Bellasar made the village that realistic?

The chopper crisscrossed the village, continuing to search. As soon as Bellasar faced the opposite direction, Malone rushed from cover and hurried toward another Jeep. Wary of the chopper, he grabbed a rifle from one of the mannequin soldiers and raced back to the cover of a wall.

Breathing heavily, he examined the weapon. An M16. Its magazine was fully loaded. Did that mean the grenades the mannequins carried were real also? Why would…

So the sound effects and the visuals will be accurate, Malone understood with a chill. When Bellasar and his clients shoot at this village, it has to seem as realistic as possible. An explosion has to detonate gasoline in vehicles. It has to set off grenades and ammunition as it would when fire engulfed military corpses.

The chopper pivoted, coming in Malone’s direction. He’ll fly right over me, Malone realized, his heart beating faster. He’ll see me behind this wall.

Racing toward an alley, Malone heard the chopper increase speed. He saw me! Entering the alley, charging between houses, he cursed when he saw the alley end at a doorway.

If that door’s a fake, if it’s jammed…

He didn’t have an option. He knew what Bellasar would do next. Stretching his legs to their maximum, he reached the dead end. Slamming against the door, pawing at its latch, he thrust it open. His momentum carried him into a house, but instead of stopping, he kept running. He saw an open window, raced toward it, dove through it, and, even as he flew through the air, an explosion behind him thrust him farther, the rocket Bellasar had launched hitting the front of the house. The force of the blast sent walls toppling, rubble flying. When Malone landed in a stone courtyard, the pain in his ribs almost made him pass out. Chunks of rock fell over him. Dust and smoke overwhelmed him.

Smoke. Despite his pain, a thought that had started forming earlier now insisted. Smoke. The fires in the ruined buildings had created so much smoke that this section of the village was blanketed with it. Bellasar couldn’t see where Malone was sprawled.

Wrong. As the chopper approached, its spinning blades dispersed the smoke, allowing Bellasar a glimpse of the wreckage.

The smoke will work, though, Malone decided. There just has to be enough of it.

Wincing from the pain in his ribs, he forced himself across the courtyard. Gaining speed, he reached a street and saw another Jeep approaching. He took off his windbreaker and formed a sling with it. He darted out, jumped onto the Jeep, grabbed grenades from the equipment belts on the mannequins, stuffed them into the sling, heard the chopper approaching, grabbed two more grenades, and leapt off, taking cover in a doorway as Bellasar flew over.

Straining to get enough air in his lungs, he pulled the pin from a grenade, heaved the grenade toward the receding Jeep, and raced the opposite way along the street. A truck came around a corner. He tossed a grenade into it as well and ran harder. The blast from the first grenade gutted the Jeep, set off a secondary explosion in the gas tank, and detonated the ammunition in the rifles. Pop, pop, pop, he heard, then winced from the louder explosion of the second grenade, the truck bursting into flames. Continuing to run, he hurled a third grenade at a pickup truck, a fourth at a bus, a fifth at a station wagon. The chain of explosions behind him was accompanied by rising columns of dense black smoke from burning gasoline and tires.

Bellasar shot into the smoke, but Malone was already in a different sector, blowing up a half-track, another Jeep, and another pickup truck. The secondary explosions added to the chaos, more dense smoke billowing. The stench was so acrid Malone bent over, coughing. The flames spread to buildings. Mannequins dressed as civilians moved on their tracks, continuing to walk even though they were burning.

The smoke drifted from the village, spreading across the field around it. Malone used it for cover, racing toward the weapons-testing stalls. The.50-caliber machine gun, he kept thinking. Bellasar had cut off his route to it earlier. If Malone had persisted, he was certain Bellasar would have decided the threat was sufficiently serious for him to quit toying with Malone and stop the game right then.

A change in the sound of the chopper’s motors warned Malone that Bellasar had seen him running across the smoke-obscured field.

No!

He raced as hard as he could.

The chopper sped toward him.

What if the machine gun doesn’t have ammunition? What if -

Run!

Bellasar fired, narrowly missing him.

Faster!

Malone’s makeshift sling still held a few grenades. His legs pumping, his chest heaving, he grabbed a grenade, pulled its pin, reached the machine gun, then whirled and threw the grenade as far and as high as he could in the chopper’s direction. He was too desperate to worry about shrapnel as he swung toward the machine gun on its tripod and shouted in triumph when he saw that an ammunition belt was attached to it.

The grenade exploded in front of the chopper, its shock wave jolting the fuselage, shrapnel whacking against the Plexiglas, the distraction enough to keep Bellasar from firing again.

For an intense moment, Malone saw Bellasar’s fury-contorted features. In the back, desperate and frenzied, Potter and Ahmed tugged at the bars to which they were handcuffed. Then Malone yanked back the arming mechanism on the machine gun, tilted the weapon upward, and pulled the trigger. The awesome rate of fire threatened to twist the weapon out of his control. But although he had found the recoil daunting when Bellasar had made him fire the weapon months earlier, he now felt angrily at ease with it. Its repeated shudder, reminiscent of the speed and power of a locomotive, aggravated the pain in his body, but his body transcended his pain. In the next pure timeless moment, he and the weapon were one as he steadied his aim and kept squeezing the trigger. The rounds had extrapowerful loads. The tips were explosive. Bellasar had been so proud of them. Now a steady spray of them struck the chopper, blowing it, along with Bellasar, Potter, and Ahmed, to hell.

The blast was so powerful, it slammed Malone to the ground, and this time he did pass out – but not before he saw the flaming wreckage cascade, slamming, onto the field. How long he was unconscious, a minute or five minutes, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that when he came to, the wreckage was still burning across from him. But he didn’t have time to rejoice in his victory. He had no thought of celebration. He hadn’t been victorious. There was nothing to celebrate. He was alive, and he had gotten his revenge, but he hadn’t won. Wavering to his feet, he stumbled past mutilated trees and hedges toward the Cloister. Sienna! he kept thinking, and then, as he broke from a stumble to a run, he wailed it.

“SIENNA!”

11

Time had deceived him. What had seemed like fifteen minutes had taken an hour. When he reached the Cloister, he found Jeb passed out on its front steps, a pool of blood around him, a bullet hole in his arm. “Now I owe you,” Malone said. A policeman and a doctor, alarmed by the rumble of the distant explosions, had arrived from the nearest village twenty kilometers away. While the doctor worked on Jeb, the policeman and townspeople summoned by phone were searching the grounds, trying to help the survivors. Three of Jeb’s men, including Dillon, had been wounded. Two were dead. Sickened, Malone rushed down the basement stairs to the corridor outside Sienna’s chamber.

The Russians had remained, still devastated by the reality that Bellasar had actually used the weapon. Pale, they continued to stare through both windows toward Sienna. After having waited so long, she was pacing, her eyes panicky. Through the one-way glass, Malone watched her tug frantically at the door, then study the ceiling, trying to calculate a way out. The bruises on her face were more pronounced. It broke his heart to see them. But they were the least thing that would mar her beauty.

“How long does the disease take to develop?” he asked the stoop-shouldered Russian.

Downcast, the man replied, “Normally, seven to ten days.”

“Normally?”

“We engineered it so the effects are accelerated. But it was all a research experiment. We never dreamed Bellasar would actually use it.”

“How long?”

“Three days.”

“Does she know she’s been exposed?”

Looking more dejected, the Russian shook his head from side to side.

Malone swallowed bile. His ordeal had left him so weak, he could barely stand. But how he felt didn’t matter. He went into an office behind him, picked up its phone, and pressed the numbers Bellasar had earlier given him.

Across from him, through the one-way glass, Sienna spun toward the room’s table and the phone on it. From Malone’s point of view, it rang silently as she picked it up.

“Chase?”

“Right here, sweetheart.”

“I got so worried. You said you were coming, and when you didn’t -”

“Something held me back.”

“You sound…” She straightened. “Are you all right?”

“Tired. Banged-up. Otherwise… You want to hear some good news?”

“God yes.”

“It’s over. He’s dead. You don’t have to be afraid of him ever again.”

For a moment, she didn’t react. She seemed not to believe what she had heard. Then tears welled from her eyes, streaming down her ravaged face.

With all his heart, Malone wanted to hold her. He imagined how closed in she must feel, not being able to see outside the room.

“Come get me,” she said. “Please.”

“I can’t.” Malone’s voice didn’t want to work. “Not yet. Not for five hours.”

“Five hours? Why? I don’t understand.”

“Some kind of time lock. I won’t be able to open the door until then.”

“Time lock? Five hours?”

“But you won’t be alone. You and I can still keep talking like this. Now that you don’t have to fear him, what would you like to do? Where would you like to go?”

“Do? That’s easy. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Malone’s throat tightened. “You’ve got a deal. And what about where?”

“You’ll think this is corny.”

“I doubt it. Give it a try.”

“I’d like to go where I told you my parents went on their honeymoon.”

“To Siena? In Italy?”

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing corny about that at all.”

When policemen streamed into the corridor, Malone refused to interrupt what he and Sienna were talking about: their dreams, regrets, and resolves. He locked the door and motioned vigorously through the window for the policemen to leave him alone. At first, they tried to break in, until the Russians told them what had happened.

Five hours passed.

A lifetime.

Finally the time lock opened.

Malone hung up the phone and stepped out of the office. The policemen had long ago left the building, afraid that the Russians had miscalculated, that the disease would still be contagious. Even the Russians had left, finally losing confidence in the safeguards they had taken.

Only Malone stood in the corridor. It made no difference to him if he caught the disease. Without Sienna, he didn’t want to live. Still not knowing how to tell her, he entered the chamber. They hugged as if it had been years since they’d been allowed to see each other. They kissed as if it would be the last time they ever did.