Burnt Sienna

Epilogue

Siena sits on three hills in the rolling countryside of Italy’s Tuscany. Its famed cathedral has an intricately textured facade, its white marble offset with green-and rose-colored stone. The city’s piazza – sloped like half of a giant shell, paved with fiery bricks in a her-ringbone pattern – is rimmed by medieval palaces and civic buildings. Much of the old part of the city has survived. Its ancient gates, its narrow, winding up-and-down streets, its stone buildings and sloping rust-colored tile roofs have the effect of obscuring cars, motorbikes, and electrical lines and, like the piazza, taking one back in time.

That was the impression for Jeb Wainright as he made his way along a brown brick lane, opened a gray wooden gate, and entered a brightly colored flower garden, its reds, purples, and greens in contrast with the smoldering earth tones for which the city is famous. He wore sneakers, jeans, and a blue short-sleeved polo shirt. He had a camera bag slung over his left shoulder. Periodically, he rubbed that arm as if troubled by a persistent ache.

An elderly man came out of a doorway into the sunlight, his straw hat and gardener’s coveralls dusty. “May I help you?” he asked in Italian.

Jeb, who had often worked in Italy and knew the language, answered, “I’m looking for someone I’m told is renting some rooms here. An American.”

“Signor Malone?”

Jeb tried to appear subdued. “Yes. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

The man’s troubled expression made Jeb feel troubled.

“He is where he always is.” The white-bearded man pointed toward an opposite gate, beyond which shrubs blossomed.

“Grazie.”

Massaging his left arm again, Jeb walked along a path, heard bees murmuring among the flowers, opened the gate, and entered a different kind of garden, lush grass bordered by ornamental bushes, trees providing shade.

To the left, a man was so rapt in concentration, an artist’s brush in his hand, a canvas on an easel before him, that he didn’t hear the gate open. The painting depicted the most beautiful woman Jeb had ever seen.

Its subject sat in a wicker chair, a section of the fiery brown city spread out behind her. Jeb remembered a time when he had felt so awkward in the presence of the woman’s beauty that he had found it difficult to look at her. As he approached, he fought the urge to look away.

For her part, seeing him, she fidgeted, then crossed the garden and disappeared through a doorway.

Saddened by her departure, Malone turned to see who had interrupted the session. “Jeb?” He blinked as if he thought his eyes were tricking him.

“How are you doing, old buddy? You promised you’d keep in touch. When you didn’t, I got worried.”

Surprised by Jeb’s arrival, Malone didn’t answer right away, seeming not to know what to say. “Keep in touch? Yeah, I meant to.”

“But things got busy?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re a hard man to find,” Jeb said. “All I had to go on was, the Russian heard you promise Sienna on the phone that the two of you would come here.”

“It’s a beautiful city.”

“So I found out. The next time I have to go to ground, this is where I’ll do it.” Jeb glanced toward where Sienna had disappeared through the doorway. He returned his attention to Malone. “So, how have you been?”

Malone hesitated. “Good.” He thought about it. “Everything considered.”

“You’re looking well.”

“So are you.” Malone studied him. For the first time, he spoke directly. “What do you want, Jeb?”

“Just to see my old friend and find out how he’s doing. Maybe have a few beers together. Catch up on lost time.”

Malone glanced down at his hands. “I guess I’m being rude.”

“What gave you that idea?”

The playful sarcasm made Malone smile slightly. Then he sobered. “How’s the arm?”

“That damned bullet nicked a nerve or something. The muscle twitches.”

“Sorry.”

“No big deal.”

“But it is. You did a lot for me.” Malone glanced toward the doorway. “For both of us. What about your job?”

“Laster was furious that I went behind his back. He assigned me to a desk until he decided whether he could trust me back in the field.”

“I know how sitting at a desk would drive you crazy.”

“It had its advantages. It gave me a chance to watch Laster.”

Malone frowned.

“I couldn’t stop wondering who Bellasar’s informant was in the Agency,” Jeb said. “From the start, it bugged me that Laster had been so ready to believe the body in the East River was yours. As fast as he could, he canceled the backup I’d arranged in case you managed to get Sienna off Bellasar’s estate. And there were other things – the way he brought you and Sienna to that safe house in Virginia and prolonged your debriefing, even though it was obvious we’d gotten all the information we were going to. Then Bellasar suddenly knew you were at the safe house, the same way Bellasar suddenly found out you and Sienna were in Mexico after I told Laster.”

Malone’s gaze hardened.

“So I checked his background. He’s got a wife, two kids in college. Manages to live within his means. The first couple of times I followed him, he seemed to have the most boring life in the world. But one weekend, he broke his routine, didn’t go home, and drove up to Baltimore instead. It turns out he’s got another life up there, another identity, another house, and another woman, this one twenty years younger. Under his other identity, he also has a bank account in the Bahamas that got deposits from one of Bellasar’s corporations. He’s looking at twenty years in prison.”

“Not long enough.” Malone’s voice hardened. “But when he gets out, he and I are going to have a talk.”

“Talk to me. I mean it, Chase. Are you all right?”

“Sure.”

“And what about…” Jeb pointed toward the doorway.

“Fine.”

Sunshine through a window revealed numerous paintings on a wall. All of them depicted the same beautiful woman. “You’ve been busy.”

“The two things I don’t lack are time to paint and inspiration. When an artist finds his Beatrice…” Malone glanced at the portrait he’d been working on, lost in thought.

“Aren’t you going to offer me that beer?”

“Sorry.” Malone looked displeased with himself. “I guess I’m still being rude. Sit down. I’ll be right back.”

But Malone didn’t return for several minutes. Sitting on a bench, Jeb heard an indistinct conversation.

Finally, Malone came out with the beers.

“Sienna won’t be joining us?” Jeb asked.

“She’s a little under the weather.”

“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to talking with her.”

“She sends her best.”

“Give her mine.”

It went on like that for an hour, a strained conversation between friends whom circumstance had parted. Jeb told him about how the CIA and its French equivalent had worked quickly to cover up what had happened at Bellasar’s estate, claiming there’d been an industrial accident.

One thing Malone and Jeb didn’t talk about was what it had been like during the three weeks Malone had struggled to keep Sienna alive. Because no one was certain that the fail-safe feature incorporated into the weapon would prevent it from being contagious after six hours, the Cloister had been quarantined. After teams in biohazard suits had removed the wounded and the dead, a thousand-meter perimeter had been established. No one had been allowed on or off the obliterated estate.

Ghostlike among the rubble, the only building still standing, the Cloister had been the makeshift hospital in which Malone, guided by telephone conversations with physicians, worked to keep Sienna’s fever down, to adjust her intravenous lines, give her sponge baths with cool water, and will her to live.

One of the most feared plagues, smallpox had been eradicated in 1977. Because few present-day physicians had ever seen its devastating effects, Malone was asked to make detailed notes about its symptoms, all the more necessary because this was a new form of the disease. The virus’s unpredictability was the main reason the authorities had decided not to risk taking Sienna to a hospital. Medicines and food were dropped by parachute. In theory, the disease wasn’t contagious; these precautions were needless. But if Malone developed symptoms, plans had been made to use a thermal bomb on the area and destroy every trace of the virus.

Malone hadn’t known about that contingency any more than Jeb, recovering from his wound, had known what Malone was going through in the Cloister. Jeb could only imagine and ask doctors what Malone had said and, later, read the notes Malone had made while taking care of her. First had come the fever: 106 degrees. Then vomiting, diarrhea, and delirium. Then a rash of scarlet hemorrhagic blotches beneath the skin. The doctors had told Jeb the risk of death was greatest at this point. Spots had appeared on Sienna’s face and neck. The spots grew into blisters. The blisters became cloudy. At last, the eruptions dried into scabs. Throughout, the urge to scratch had been almost uncontrollable. Despite her weakness, Sienna’s efforts to claw at her face had been so powerful that Malone had lost strength holding her arms down and at last had been forced to tie them to her sides.

When it appeared that she was going to live and that the virus was not contagious without its companion, the authorities had relented on the quarantine, removing Sienna to a sealed ward in a hospital, keeping a close watch on Malone in case belated symptoms appeared. Meanwhile, Jeb had continued to recuperate. When visitors were finally allowed into the ward, Jeb, his arm in a sling, had been the first to arrive. But Malone and Sienna had been gone…

As the conversation drifted to a halt, Jeb finished his beer. A breeze rustled leaves. A distant drone of traffic blended with the sound of bees in the flowers.

Malone didn’t make an offer of a second beer. “How soon are you expected back in Washington?”

“It’s kind of open-ended,” Jeb said. “Are you up for dinner tonight?”

“We really don’t go out much.”

“Just the two of us maybe.”

“I don’t like to leave Sienna alone.”

“Sure,” Jeb said. “Should I drop around tomorrow?”

Malone didn’t say anything.

“Well, this is the name of the hotel where I’m staying.” Jeb handed him a card he had taken from the lobby. “If you change your mind…”

“Right.” Malone put the card in his shirt pocket.

“So…” Jeb shook his hand. “Say good-bye to Sienna for me. Make sure you give her my best.” Feeling awkward, he turned toward the easel. “It’s a masterpiece. You’ve never done better work.”

“Yes.”

“And those other paintings…” Jeb pointed toward the ones he had seen through the window. “They’re masterpieces, too.”

“I’ve never been this inspired before.”

“Take care of yourself,” Jeb said. “And of her.”

“Believe me, that’s the most natural thing in the world.”

As Jeb opened the gate, Malone went into the house.

Ahead, in the flower garden, the white-bearded man asked Jeb, “Did you enjoy your visit with your friend?”

“It’s complicated.”

“His wife,” the elderly man said in wonder. “He’s so devoted to her. They never go out. They’re totally content to be with each other. They’ve lived here six months, and you’re the first visitor they’ve had.”

“They have each other. What more could they want?”

“Have you seen the paintings?”

Jeb nodded.

“They all show his wife,” the elderly man said. “He doesn’t paint anything else.”

“With work that exceptional, he doesn’t need to paint anything else.”

“But I don’t understand.” The old man hesitated. “Have you seen her?”

“Briefly. When I entered the garden, she went into the house.”

“She always does that. She avoids being seen. What happened?”

“A disease.”

“And yet in the paintings she’s so beautiful.”

“She is beautiful.”

The old man looked puzzled.

“What’s on the canvas is what he sees.”

Jeb walked past the bright flowers and paused at the gray wooden gate.

He loves her so much, Jeb thought, she’ll always be the most beautiful woman in the world.