Burnt Sienna

1

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“I missed you at breakfast,” Malone said.

At the entrance to the sunroom, Sienna looked down at her feet. “I wasn’t hungry.”

Although her movements weren’t as listless as the night before, she still didn’t seem alert. Her face was puffy. Her skin was pale. Her eyes had slight hollows beneath them. Perhaps because she knew she didn’t appear at her best, she kept her gaze slightly away from him. Or perhaps she wanted to avoid seeing what had been done to him.

“How bad does it hurt?” She still didn’t look at his face.

“I’d give you a stiff-upper-lip attitude, but my upper lip is too mashed.” It was a weak attempt at humor, but at the moment, weary from a sleepless night and afraid of how she was going to react to what he planned to tell her, he couldn’t think of anything else. Worse, how was he going to appeal to her if she wouldn’t even look at him? The gash on his cheek had swollen. His mouth was scabbed. It was a wonder she didn’t run from him in horror.

“And you?” he asked softly. “How are you?”

“I’ve been better.”

“How was Istanbul?”

“Humid. Crowded.”

“What I meant was -”

“I know what you meant. I think we should talk about something else.” She wore sandals and a loose ankle-length skirt of beige linen. The pullover top was ecru. Her hands fidgeted with its hem, then suddenly let go as footsteps outside made her spin. She didn’t relax when she saw that it was only a servant going past. “We have to get started.”

Something in her eyes reminded him of an animal that had been disciplined so much its spirit was broken. “Derek changed his mind,” she said. “He wants me to pose only partially nude.”

Bellasar’s sudden change in plans puzzled Malone, but he was too preoccupied to consider the implications. It was as if he and Sienna hadn’t spent weeks together, as if there were a million miles between them.

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

This wasn’t how he had imagined their reunion. He had assumed that she would be communicative, that she would leave him an opening. Instead, he had the nervous feeling that they were opposed. “Over there. Against the wall. With the sunlight on you.”

She did what she was told.

But something about the way she moved made him straighten. “Wait a second. Are you limping?”

“What?” She sounded as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.

“You’re limping.”

“No.”

“Sure you are. You look like you’re in pain.”

“It’s nothing. My legs got cramped from sitting too long on the plane yesterday.”

“I don’t believe you. Come back this way. Walk toward me.”

“I’m telling you, it’s just a -”

“Walk toward me.”

She didn’t move.

Malone approached her, studying her. “What’s happened?”

She looked away.

“What did he do?”

“Nothing. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

Malone felt a terrible urgency. He had always been careful about what he said in the sunroom, assuming that Bellasar had microphones hidden there. A couple of times, he had pushed the boundary, hence Bellasar’s sudden appearances to assert his authority. But now as events spiraled out of control, Malone knew that no matter how guarded Sienna was being with him, he had to take the risk.

“Okay,” he said.

She looked puzzled, as if she had braced herself to keep resisting and hadn’t expected him to back off.

“If you’re not hurt, we can get to work. Your husband won’t like it if we waste time. In fact, I’ve already decided on the pose I want. We can skip doing further sketches. I’m going to start painting right away.”

As he spoke, he took her arm and guided her toward the back of the sunroom.

“What are you -”

But he cut her off. “I need to get some supplies from the storage room. Wait out here. I’ll just be a minute.”

In contradiction to what he said, however, he took Sienna with him.

Through a door in back – into the storage room.

2

It was small, damp, and faintly lit, crammed with painting supplies. There weren’t any windows.

“What are you doing?”

“Keep your voice down.” Malone shut the door, then guided her past easels and boxes toward a sink. He couldn’t be sure that the storage room wasn’t bugged. Given how cramped it was, Bellasar would probably have dismissed it as a place where conversations would be held. But just to make sure, Malone turned on the faucets, hoping that the sound of running water would obscure their voices. “I’m afraid there are microphones where we work.”

“Microphones?” As the idea struck her, Sienna gripped the sink.

“Tell me what he did to you.”

“No. We have to get out of here. If Derek -”

“I can help you.”

“No one can help me.”

“Please, let me try.”

They stood frozen, staring at each other. Slowly, she raised a finger toward his ravaged face. She almost touched his mangled lips. She traced an imaginary line around the stitches on his swollen cheek.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “Last night, when I saw what he’d done to you, I wanted to cry.”

“But what did he do to you?”

Her eyes misted. She shook her head from side to side. “You’ve seen what Derek can be like. Don’t get involved in this.”

“I have to.”

After the most poignant look anyone had ever given him, Sienna bent slowly. Her hands trembled as she raised her skirt, first past her ankles, then past her shins.

Malone gaped at the bruises above her knees. Her thighs were a purple mass of them; they looked like beefsteak.

“Jesus,” he murmured.

In pain, she lowered the hem of her skirt back down to her ankles. Straightening, pulling the waistband slightly away from her body, she showed him where the angry-looking bruises continued to the top of her hips.

“What the hell did he -”

“The man Derek was meeting barely noticed me.” Sienna shuddered. “In fact, he couldn’t wait for me to leave. It was the first time that had ever happened. When Derek came back to our suite at three in the morning, he was furious. It was my fault, he said, that the negotiation had almost fallen through. He told me I was useless to him, that he could barely stand to look at me, that…”

Malone touched her arm. “Easy. You don’t have to put yourself through it again.”

“For the first time since I’ve known him, he made a fist to hit me. It was like I was back in Milan five years ago with the boyfriend who beat me up.” She flinched, as if seeing the fist again. “Then he looked shocked, realizing what he was doing. The one thing I thought I could always count on was that he’d never hurt me. All of a sudden, he started kicking me, the way he’d kick a football, the tips of his shoes coming at me. He chose a spot where the bruises wouldn’t show – above the hem of my dress. I tried to defend myself, to get behind a table, but he kept coming at me, kicking, and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor. He wouldn’t stop. If it hadn’t been for Alex coming in, I’m afraid he might have -”

“Where is Alex? Why didn’t he return with you and Derek?”

“He stayed in Istanbul. Something to do with the negotiations. Some trick Derek has him up to as a way of putting pressure on the man he’s dealing with. He’s coming back this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?”

Sienna frowned. “You make it sound important. Why?”

“I have to explain something.”

“No. If Derek doesn’t see some progress… I realize I look like hell, but this isn’t a photograph – it’s a portrait. You can fake it. You can make me look as beautiful as -”

“Listen to me.”

“Please. I don’t want to be kicked again. I don’t want -”

“Don’t worry.” Malone’s voice hardened. “If I have anything to do about it, your husband’s never going to kick you again. No one is.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I can get you out of here, will you go with me? Will you take the chance to escape?”

And there it was. The words, so long restrained, were finally free. He couldn’t turn back. He held his breath, fearing her reaction. If he’d misjudged her, if she was uncontrollably dominated by Bellasar to the point where she could never imagine going against him, he had just guaranteed that he’d soon be dead. She would look at him in dismay. She would accuse him of having misjudged her. She would tell Bellasar.

“Escape?” Sienna made the word sound like nonsense. “Have you lost your mind?”

Jesus, I made the wrong choice, Malone thought. I just threw my life away.

“It isn’t possible to escape,” she said.

“What?” Malone shook his head in confusion. If she was going to turn against him, this wasn’t what he had expected.

“Don’t you think I’ve considered it? Don’t you think I would have done it if I could have found a way?”

“You’ll come with me?”

“How? Where? Even if we could get out of here, Derek would never rest until he found us. He’d use all his power and money, every resource at his disposal, to track us down.”

But we wouldn’t be alone, Malone wanted to tell her. If we can get out of here, we’ll have all the help we could ever want. He didn’t dare say it. If she thought he was a spy, if she thought he had come here to use her…

“We have to take the chance,” he said.

“We can’t! Look, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to risk your life for me. Complete the portrait and leave.”

“And what about you?”

“I’ve been taking care of myself since I was twelve. I survived what Derek did to me in Istanbul, and I’ll survive worse as long as he tolerates me. But I’ll never survive if he finds out I’ve betrayed him.”

“Listen to me.” Malone hesitated. There wasn’t an easy way to say this. “He’s planning to have you killed.”

“What?”

“He’s been married three times before.”

“What are you talking about?”

“All of his wives were beautiful. But when they got to be around thirty and started to show signs of aging, they died in various accidents.”

Sienna’s mouth opened, but she seemed to have lost the power of speech.

“Before each accident, your husband hired a prominent artist to do a portrait of each woman – to memorialize her after death, to have a trophy, to make her beauty permanent. Now it’s your turn.”

“I don’t… How on earth do you know this?”

“Some of it I heard from the other artists,” Malone lied. “The rest of it… We don’t have time for me to explain. There’s a room on the third level. In the middle hallway. About halfway along on the left.”

Sienna concentrated, trying to get over her shock. “Yes, where Derek keeps his business documents.”

“You’ve been in the room? You’ve seen the documents?”

“No, it’s always locked. When I first came here, I asked what was in there, and that’s what he told me.”

“That’s where the portraits of the other wives are.”

“This can’t -”

“There’s one way to prove it.”

3

Trying to hide her fear, Sienna reached the top floor. Her legs in pain, she walked along the middle corridor and almost flinched when the door to Derek’s bedroom opened. But it wasn’t Derek who came out, only a servant. After a cursory nod, Sienna continued toward her own room, entered, left a slight gap when she shut the door, and listened for the servant to go away.

The moment the receding footsteps became so soft that they couldn’t be heard, she eased the door open, peered out, and assured herself that the corridor was deserted. Immediately, she went back down the hall and tried the door Chase had mentioned. As she expected, it was locked, but she had needed to make the attempt on the chance that it might not have been. She went one door farther along, to the one from which the servant had just left, slipped inside, and shut the door.

She had been in Derek’s room only once before, five years earlier. Repressing her memories of that night, she saw that nothing seemed to have changed. The place was still decorated with antiques from the Italian Renaissance, including a canopied bed, its four posts intricately carved. The sight of the bed increased her anxiety. She shifted her attention to a door on the right, which led to the room she was interested in. Although it, too, was probably locked, she allowed herself to hope when she tried it, only to lower her head in discouragement when the door didn’t budge. I need a key, she thought.

Derek was scrupulously thorough. Anything important had to have a backup, sometimes more than one. Didn’t it make sense that he’d want to have a spare key hidden within easy reach?

Allowing herself to hope again, she turned to face the room. Across from her, a five-hundred-year-old Medici bureau brought back more memories of the only other time she had been in this room. Derek had waited to marry her until the bandages had come off her face and her beauty had been re-created, as he phrased it. The wedding had occurred in a rose garden on the property, just the two of them, a minister, and Potter as the witness. She had been so grateful to have been rescued from her former life that she hadn’t regretted not having a bigger celebration. In the dining hall, a string quartet had played waltzes. She and Derek had danced. They had cut the wedding cake and given pieces of it to the staff. Her wedding gift had been a diamond necklace. She remembered how heavy it had felt as Derek had escorted her up to his room.

There, the loneliness of her marriage had begun. Wanting more than anything to make love to the man she had married three hours previously, she had reached for him, then became dismayed when his ardor changed to hesitancy, then to frustration, and then to anger. She had tried everything to arouse him. Her final attempt had made him push her to the floor.

“Derek, it’s okay,” she had tried to assure him. “These things happen. It’s the excitement of the wedding. All we need is a little time.”

“Get out of here.”

She’d been sure she hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”

“Get out. There’s a room at the end of the hall. Take it. Sleep there.”

“But aren’t we going to share -”

“Damn it, I told you to get out!”

He had thrown a robe at her, barely giving her a chance to put it on before he shoved her into the corridor. In her room, she had wept, trying to understand what had happened. She had hoped to sleep, but her turmoil had kept her awake, until finally she had walked down the hall and opened his door, saying, “Derek, if there’s a problem, let’s talk about it. Whatever it is, we can -”

Slamming a drawer shut, he had spun toward her, his face twisted with more fury than she had ever seen. “Don’t ever come in this room again!”

Stunned by the emotion of his outburst, she had retreated into the corridor. He had slammed the door, making her realize that she had exchanged one hell for another. The next morning, wary about what would happen next, she had waited a long time before going downstairs, only to be surprised by the gracious way Derek greeted her, as if the previous night had been a fabulous beginning to their marriage. They never discussed what had come between them. They never again tried to have sex. And she never again went into his room. It was so much wiser not to, so much better when Derek wasn’t displeased.

But she never forgot the abrupt way Derek had slammed the drawer.

As if he had been hiding something.

Now she crossed the room toward the Medici bureau. She opened its hinged panels and pulled out the middle drawer. It revealed cashmere sweaters. Nothing else.

I was wrong.

Disheartened, she turned to leave the room. But he looked like he was hiding something, she insisted to herself. Where?

Maybe it isn’t something in the drawer.

Maybe…

She knocked on the drawer’s bottom. It sounded hollow. She ran her fingers along the inside, did the same thing underneath, and tensed when she felt a catch at the back. When she pushed it, the inside bottom of the drawer came loose. Hand trembling, she tilted it up. A shallow compartment contained passports for various countries, a pistol, and a single key on a gold chain.

Reaching for the key, she frowned at how the trembling in her hand increased. She pressed down on the bottom, shut the drawer, closed the bureau, and whirled toward the sound of someone approaching along the hallway. As the doorknob turned, she hurriedly crouched behind a large upholstered chair. She held her breath. If Derek came in… If he found her…

The door opened. Whoever it was crossed the room and entered the bathroom. A moment later, the person came out, passed the chair, and left, shutting the door.

Sienna exhaled. It was probably a servant putting fresh towels or something in the bathroom, she thought. Her crouched position aggravated the pain from her bruises. Straightening stiffly, she listened for more movement in the hallway. When she heard nothing, she moved quickly toward the door, tried the key, and felt her breathing quicken when it worked. With a harrowing sense that this was the most significant threshold she would ever cross, she eased the door open, stepped inside, closed the door, and found herself staring at what seemed like ghosts.

4

The murkiness of the room enhanced the illusion. Thick draperies filtered most of the outdoor light. Across from her, the faces of several women seemed to float in dense twilight. More disturbing, while Sienna recognized the portrait Chase had done of her, she had the sensation of seeing herself reflected in mirrors, so closely did the other portraits resemble her. But how could that be if she had never sat for them? She flicked an electrical switch on her left, blinked from the assault of light, and stared with growing shock at the wall of portraits.

There were seven – the one devoted to her, and three sets of two, each composed of a face and a full-length nude. Each set had the style of a different artist. But the faces were unnervingly similar, sharing the same shape and proportion. Definitely, the flowing hairstyle was the same; it was one that Derek had always insisted on. From a distance or in shadow, the other women could have been mistaken for Sienna. Sienna could have been mistaken for the other women. My God, she thought. Shivering, she approached the paintings. Some had been done in oil, others in watercolor. The signatures on them confirmed that each of the three sets had been done by a different artist. Their names were in the pantheon of late-twentieth-century artists, so famous that even people unfamiliar with art would recognize them.

The dates next to the signatures had unnerving implications. The first was fifteen years previously, the second seven years later, the third three years after that. But the faces in the portraits remained the same age – thirty or so – proving that unless the portraits weren’t true likenesses, a different model had been used for each set. More unnerved, Sienna noticed that the date on the third set was the same year Derek had rescued her in Milan. Jesus, she thought. He got tired of the woman before me when she started showing the slightest signs of age. He got rid of her and chose someone younger who looked like her, like all of them – me.

But when Derek had come to her hotel five years ago, why hadn’t he been turned off by her haggard look and the bruises on her face? She shivered as she remembered the plastic surgeon who had been waiting at the estate. He had said that he was going to hide the scars from the beating she had received. After the bandages had been removed, she had noticed that she looked slightly different – not better or worse, just different, her cheekbones slightly more pronounced, for example – but she had attributed that to an unavoidable consequence of hiding the scars. Now she realized, My God, Derek told the surgeon to make me look more like those other women.

In dismay, she peered around the room, so cold now that her teeth chattered when she saw photographs on the other walls. Some were in black and white, others in color. Some were close-ups, others group shots. Some were taken in outdoor settings, others in palatial interiors. But they all had one common denominator: The same woman was in all of them. Although the younger shots of her made her somewhat hard to identify, there was no mistaking her features as she became a teenager and then a young adult.

She looks like me, Sienna thought. Like the other women in the portraits. No, that’s wrong. I’ve got it backward. We look like her. That’s why Derek chose us.

But who in God’s name was she? Women’s shoes had been arranged on shelves. Her shoes, Sienna thought. Mannequins supported festive dresses. Her dresses, Sienna thought. She reached for a leather-bound scrapbook, opened it, and shuddered when she stared at a birth certificate for Christina Gabriela Bellasar. Derek’s sister?

Born in Rome on May 14, 1939.

One year after Derek was born.

Glancing with greater distress toward the photographs on the wall, Sienna confirmed another common factor – in none of the photos was the woman ever seen as old. Pulse rushing, Sienna flipped to the back of the scrapbook and found the document that would logically end a scrapbook that began with a birth certificate: a death certificate. On the final page, there was a yellowed clipping from a Rome newspaper. Her parents had insisted that Sienna learn Italian. She had no trouble reading the small item.

Christina Gabriela Bellasar (the last name suggested she had never married) had died in Rome on June 10, 1969, as a consequence of a fall from a balcony on the twentieth floor of a hotel. Sienna subtracted 1939 from 1969. Christina had been thirty.

As old as I am, Sienna thought. As old as the women in the portraits seemed. With soul-numbing dread, she felt compelled to turn toward a corner of the room, where she saw an antique table, upon which sat an urn. The urn seemed centuries old, its faded paint showing maidens lying beside a stream in an idyllic forest. Sienna had no doubt whose ashes were in that urn, just as she had no doubt what Derek would do to her if he discovered that she had violated this shrine. He wouldn’t wait for the second portrait to be completed. He would kill her now.

5

Descending the stairs, she was certain that every servant and guard she passed must be sensing the fear she struggled to conceal. Despite the pain in her thighs, she felt a panicked need to run, but no one looked at her strangely, and her body obeyed her fierce will, maintaining an apparently untroubled pace.

When she entered the sunroom, she saw that Chase had rejected tempera paint in favor of oil. Having attached a canvas to a frame, he was sketching on it. Her angle of approach prevented her from seeing the image. She didn’t care. All that mattered was getting him where they could talk without fear of microphones.

Chase looked at her, troubled by the stark expression on her face.

“I’ve been thinking this should be set outdoors,” Sienna said for the benefit of anyone who might be eavesdropping.

“Oh?”

“The first portrait was inside. The second ought to have a different setting. There’s a place on the terrace I think might work.”

“Why don’t you show me.”

When she took his arm, leading him, her trembling fingers made him frown.

They emerged onto the sun-bright terrace, Sienna guiding him toward a corner of its stone railing. “Here,” she said. “Like this.” She pretended to show him a pose, at the same time lowering her voice. “Do you think we can be overheard?”

A machine gun rattled in the distance.

“No. But if we stay outside too long, we might attract suspicion. What did you find?”

“Were you serious about taking me out of here?”

“Absolutely.”

“You honestly think there’s a chance?”

“I wouldn’t try it otherwise. But if you stay here, there’s no chance.”

The words rushed out of her. “Do it.”

“What you saw was that bad?”

“As soon as possible.”

“This afternoon,” Chase said.

The sense that everything was speeding up made her light-headed. “How?”

When he told her and explained what she was going to need, her dizziness intensified.

6

Time had never seemed so swift and yet so slow. She felt pushed forward and shoved back. Suddenly it was lunch hour, but as quickly as the morning had passed, the meal itself seemed to last forever. Derek stopped by to express his enthusiasm for how much work had been accomplished that morning, and Sienna tried not to look puzzled, wondering what on earth he was talking about. Work? No work had been done. But when she and Chase returned to the sunroom, she realized she had been too preoccupied all morning to pay attention to how much Chase had accomplished.

The sketch had been completed. It showed her only from the waist up, naked, standing against a blank background, her back straight, her arms behind her, a defiant gaze directed toward anyone viewing the canvas. The lack of detail in the background gave the impression that she was so furious about being forced on display that she had detached herself from her surroundings, her body here but her mind miles away.

That wasn’t an exaggeration. She felt so apprehensive about what they would soon try that everything around her was a haze. Even Chase seemed as insubstantial as smoke, and as for her half-naked body before him, she was hardly conscious of it. The only reality was in her imagination as she brooded about the future. She shivered, but not at all because her skin was uncovered.

Maybe this isn’t a good idea, she thought. Maybe we shouldn’t try it.

But I have to. It’s my only chance.

But maybe we should think about it more. Maybe this isn’t the right time. Maybe we should wait for a better – From the testing range, a burst of machine-gun fire brought her back to the moment. The sunroom seemed to materialize before her. The haze dispersed. She became aware of Chase studying her, darting his brush toward the canvas.

A distant explosion rattled windows. Immediately another sound rattled windows, the din of an approaching helicopter.

7

Pressing the bridge of his spectacles against his nose, Potter stared down toward the estate’s walls, trees, ponds, and gardens. They seemed to enlarge as the helicopter descended. Specks of figures became distinct, guards watching the entrances, others patrolling, gardeners tending the grounds, servants going about their business. Smoke from an explosion rose from the testing area.

But there was no sign of activity at the landing area. No guards converged; no one waited in greeting. Derek would long ago have heard the helicopter approaching. He would have had ample time to stop what he was doing and walk to the landing area to welcome him. But that isn’t Derek’s way, Potter thought, burning with resentment. No, Derek likes others to come to him. No matter how interested he was in what Potter had to report, he would never stoop to do anything that implied how dependent he was on Potter’s help. He had to treat everyone as inferior.

Except for the artist, Potter thought angrily. Oh, Derek was eager enough to make allowances for Malone all right. Potter had seen Derek order men shot for showing half the insolence that Malone did, and still Derek put up with Malone’s behavior because he wanted the portraits. Why Derek wanted the portraits so badly, Potter had no idea. If Derek felt like getting rid of his wives, fine. Take some snapshots for old times’ sake, then arrange an accident. But his obsession about the portraits was puzzling and dangerous. This morning, when Potter had made a preliminary report to Derek on a scrambler-protected phone, he had learned about the incident the previous night, about Malone’s disappearance and Derek’s suspicion that Malone had tried to find out what was in the Cloister. A false alarm, Derek had said.

Wrong, Potter thought. The incident had happened too conveniently while they were away. The explanation had been too complicated. Potter intended to conduct a painstaking investigation and trap Malone in inconsistencies. For example, if the artist had been suddenly inspired to do some late-night sketching in his workroom, he would have had to turn on a light, but had the guards been asked if any of them had seen that light?

I’ll expose the flaws in his story, Potter vowed. We should never have gotten involved with him. After we punished him for refusing to accept the commission, that should have been the end. I haven’t forgotten how he manipulated Derek into criticizing me at the shooting range. I’ve been made to look like a fool a dozen times over. Well, not any longer. Now it’s my turn.

As the helicopter set down, Potter released his seat belt and shoved the hatch open, eagerly waiting for the speed of the rotors to reduce so he could get out and find Derek. The whine from the spinning blades hurt his ears. The wind they created stung his eyes and ruffled his thinning hair. Then he couldn’t force himself to wait any longer. His short stature made it difficult for him to climb down, requiring a slight jump to the concrete pad. Clutching his briefcase, he bent his knees on impact. Despite his shortness, he took care to stoop as he ran beneath the spinning blades. Pressed down by the gust of the blades, he hurried toward the weapons-testing area.

But a noise behind him made him stop. A shout? Surely that isn’t possible, he told himself. As close as he was to the helicopter, the shriek from the rotors would have overwhelmed other sounds. And yet he was certain he’d heard a muffled outcry. Puzzled, he turned to look back toward the helicopter, and if he couldn’t have heard the shout, he was equally positive that he couldn’t be seeing the commotion behind him.

8

When Malone heard the approaching helicopter, his hand and the paintbrush it held froze over the canvas. A startled portion of his mind wondered if he’d had a stroke. Then his heartbeat lurched, jump-starting his body. He turned toward Sienna, who stared toward the windows and the increasing roar of the chopper.

“This is it,” he said.

She seemed not to have heard him. Mechanically, she put on her top but continued to stare distractedly toward the windows.

“Are you ready?” She still didn’t respond.

With growing unease, Malone set down his brush and walked toward her.

“Look at me.” He put his hand on her face, turning it toward him. “If we’re going to do this, we have to move now.” He no longer worried about hidden microphones. If this effort failed, eavesdroppers would be the least of his problems.

“I didn’t expect to be so afraid.”

“If you stay here, you’ll die. We can’t wait any longer. We have to move.”

The chopper sounded closer.

She studied him with an intensity that rivaled the way he had studied her for weeks now. Her eyes blazed with resolution. “Yes.”

She had followed Malone’s instruction and exchanged her sandals for walking shoes. Now she went with him to the doorway, watching the chopper approach the landing pad. Despite the distance, Potter’s pinched features were distinct behind the hatch’s Plexiglas. He seemed to be the only passenger. No one gathered at the landing pad. A few patrolling guards glanced in the chopper’s direction. Most went about their business.

Malone grabbed a sketch pad so the reason he and Sienna were outdoors would appear to be related to work.

The chopper set down.

They left the sunroom, crossed the terrace, and descended the stone steps toward the path to the Cloister.

Malone heard Sienna’s fast breathing. Then the rapid rise and fall of his own chest warned him that she wasn’t the only one in danger of hyperventilating.

A guard blocked their way. “You can’t go near the Cloister.”

“We need to speak to Mr. Potter.” Sienna motioned toward the helicopter, where Potter jumped to the landing pad and turned toward the Cloister and the weapons-testing area. “Alex!” The noise from the chopper would prevent Potter from hearing her, but the guard would think she was making an honest attempt to get his attention.

“We’ll lose the rest of the day if…” Sienna moved forward. “Alex!”

But Potter was hurrying toward the Cloister.

“Alex!” Sienna called again, moving more quickly forward.

Malone noted that the other guards, sporadically placed, weren’t paying attention.

“Alex!” Sienna ran now, Malone with her.

The chopper was only fifty yards ahead of them. The pilot had not yet turned off the engines. The blades continued to spin.

The guard behind them yelled something, his gruff voice obscured by the whine of the chopper’s blades.

Malone imagined him frowning, then unslinging his rifle from his shoulder. But would he dare to shoot? The chopper was in his line of fire. One of his targets was his boss’s wife. That would make him think twice. In the meantime, the chopper was closer, thirty yards now, but if Sienna was a target who would make the guard hesitate, Malone was another matter. He felt a spot between his shoulders get colder and tighter in anticipation of a bullet that would shatter his spine.

Racing to his limit, he strained to convince himself that his apprehension was baseless. The guard didn’t have a reason to assume the helicopter was their objective. Had any of them even been told that Malone had once been a chopper pilot? As far as the guard was concerned, the problem was to keep them out of a restricted area.

“Alex!” Sienna shouted again.

Another guard yelled a warning.

Twenty yards.

Amazingly, despite the noise from the helicopter, Potter heard the commotion and turned.

Despite his frantic emotions, Malone enjoyed a microsecond of satisfaction from the way Potter gaped. Then he and Sienna reached the helicopter. A guard raced toward them. As Malone grappled with the man, knocking him to the ground, Sienna did what she had been told. Never looking back, never faltering, she scrambled up through the open hatch. Immediately Malone lost sight of her as he raced around to the pilot’s side, caught the surprised man looking the other way toward Sienna, pulled his harness free, and yanked him out. He had a sense of guards racing in his direction as he surged up behind the controls, secured the harness, and increased power to the idling rotors. Seeing how the extra noise and wind sent Potter staggering back, Malone felt another microsecond of enjoyment, but then as he worked the controls, his sense of near victory turned sour when the helicopter struggled five feet into the air, sank back to the landing pad, rose awkwardly again, and veered, as if obeying its own impulses toward the château.

9

“Get your safety harness fastened!” Malone yelled.

Sienna fumbled to snap it into place. Adrenaline and the roar through the open hatches made her shout. “I was afraid we were going to crash!”

“Everything’s fine! There’s nothing to -”

“Watch out! We’re -”

Speeding toward the château at a height of about twenty feet, Malone urged the helicopter into a steep ascent that pressed his stomach against his spine.

Sienna moaned.

Fighting for altitude, Malone saw the château’s upper stories seem to rush toward him. Then only the third story. Then only the hazy sky was before him as he felt a jolt that made the helicopter shudder.

“What was -”

“Something hit the rudder!”

“Something?”

“They’re shooting!”

Another impact shook the controls. As the chopper twisted to the left and tilted, Sienna was thrust halfway out the open hatch, dangling, her harness straining to hold her.

“Shut the hatch!” Malone yelled.

“… Trying!”

Despite his fear for her, he couldn’t risk looking at her; he was too busy fighting the controls. “Can you reach it?”

“Think I… got it!”

From the corner of his eye, he saw the desperate effort she put into tugging the hatch shut. The noise suddenly lessened. With equal suddenness, he brought the helicopter back to a level position. Slamming his own hatch shut, he took a momentary delight in the relative silence, the roar from the engines muffled enough that he and Sienna didn’t need to shout anymore.

He studied the panel of unfamiliar switches that had puzzled him when he’d been flown to Bellasar’s estate. The pilot hadn’t used them, so Malone had no idea what purpose they served, but this wasn’t the time to experiment – the chopper was close to stalling. As it passed over fields and stone fences, Malone felt the controls buck. Ahead, a cypress-studded hill blocked the way. He urged the chopper higher, but the response was sluggish.

“What’s wrong?”

Malone glanced urgently toward the control panel. “The oil pressure’s dropping. A bullet must have hit -” He angled toward the lowest section of the hill. Barely cresting it, he winced from another jolt as one of the landing skids brushed a cypress top.

“Are we going to -” Sienna sounded terrified.

“No! If I think we’re even close to crashing, I’ll set us down first!”

“But we won’t get far enough away! We’re still over Derek’s property! He’ll -” She stared out the hatch. “Smoke!”

Black clouds of it spewed from the engine.

“If we can just stay in the air a little longer…” Malone checked the compass on the control panel. “There’s a small airfield ahead of us.”

“Where? I don’t see it.”

“In the next valley.”

“How do you know?”

Back on Cozumel, when Malone had agreed to work with Jeb, they had calculated several rescue plans if Malone had a chance to get Sienna away from Bellasar. One had involved reaching a café in Nice, where the proprietor was on the CIA’s payroll and would hide Malone and Sienna until Jeb’s team arrived. Another plan had involved going to Cannes and contacting a pleasure-boat operator who sometimes worked for the Agency. But those areas were in the opposite direction. Malone was heading inland, not toward the sea, and that left him with a remaining option, an airfield that Jeb had told him about, the compass bearings for which Malone had memorized. Jeb had promised to have a pilot and a small plane waiting for them. “If you can reach that airfield,” Jeb had said, “you’re as good as out of the country.”

“I don’t understand,” Sienna said. “How do you know about the airfield?”

“I don’t have time to explain.”

“You knew about the portraits of Derek’s other wives.” The chopper dipped, making her gasp. “How did you learn so much about -”

Malone struggled with the controls. “I’ll tell you the first chance I -”

“My God, are you a -”

“What?”

“A spy?”

10

As an engineer aimed another missile at a tank in the weapons-testing area, Bellasar tensed at the sound of shots from the château. He grabbed a pistol from one of the guards and raced along a hedge-lined path toward the Cloister. Assuring himself that the area wasn’t under attack, he charged down another path, this one toward the château, and stopped abruptly, surprised to see the helicopter veer over the building, its landing skids barely missing the roof, guards firing at it.

“What the hell happened?”

Seeing Potter to his right, he rushed toward him.

Potter’s face was livid as he stared toward the retreating helicopter. “They stole it!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Malone and your wife! They’re in that helicopter!”

“Sienna?”

“They waited for me to land! Before the pilot shut off the engine, they tricked a guard into believing they needed to talk to me! The next thing, they took off!”

Bellasar was so stunned, he couldn’t speak.

“I warned you!” Potter said. “I told you he couldn’t be trusted!”

Briefly, the helicopter was out of sight behind the château. It reappeared on the right, receding into the distance. It sputtered and lurched. Black smoke trailed from it.

“We hit it!” a guard said.

“He made a fool of you!” Potter said. “What do you suppose has been going on all the time they’ve been together?”

“Don’t call me a fool!” Bellasar drove a fist into Potter’s stomach, doubling him over, sending him to his knees.

Gasping for air, Potter peered up, his spectacles askew, his features contorted with pain. “Maybe you’d better figure out” – he managed a breath – “who’s your friend and who’s your enemy.”

In the distance, the helicopter kept sputtering.

Bellasar pivoted toward the guards. The second chopper was due to return with a load of lab equipment in thirty minutes. Until then, the only way to go after Malone and Sienna was in vehicles. Bellasar shouted orders.

As the guards rushed to obey, Potter groaned. Holding his stomach, he tried to straighten. “If I’m right” – he squeezed the words out – “this isn’t just about Malone and your wife. It’s about what he might have seen at the Cloister last night.”

Bellasar squinted toward the smoke trailing from the receding helicopter. The damage to it reduced its speed enough that the vehicles wouldn’t be outdistanced. The smoke would make it easy to follow. “Help me catch them!”

11

The controls had become so stiff that Malone could hardly move them. The chopper twisted sickeningly. At once, it dropped ten feet, with such force that Malone’s lungs seemed to soar into his throat. He needed all his strength to stop it from plummeting farther. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep it steady. For a moment, he was back in Panama, struggling to control his gunship after it had been shot. “Brace yourself! Find a place that’s flat where we can land!”

“I don’t see any!”

Staring down, Malone didn’t see any, either. They were over a rocky, shrub-dotted slope. There was no way the chopper would ever clear the top. The controls shuddered violently. If he didn’t land now, the chopper was going to make the decision for him. Using every skill he could remember, he forced the chopper out of a dizzying spiral, wobbled along the side of the slope, glimpsed a space between boulders, gave one last determined command to the resisting controls, and slammed down.

The impact rammed his teeth together. Ignoring the pain that shot along his jaw, he shut off the engines, unsnapped his safety harness, and spun toward Sienna. Her head was drooped. My God, is she -

But before the thought could be completed, she raised her hand toward the back of her neck and rubbed it, shaking her head in a daze.

“Are you okay?” he blurted.

“… Head hurts.”

“We have to get out of here.” He coughed from the black smoke that swirled around him, stinging his throat. “This thing might explode.”

That caught her attention. After one more dazed look at him, she was suddenly animated, freeing her harness, shoving at the hatch on her side of the chopper. “It’s stuck! It won’t -”

Malone desperately tried his own side and groaned when he found that it, too, was stuck, the impact having twisted it. Sweat stung his eyes as he strained to his limit, his nerves quickening when the hatch reluctantly creaked open. One of the blades had been bent down by the force of the landing. Rotating, it had struck a boulder and frozen, jamming the rotor so that the other blades were frozen also.

At least, I don’t have to worry about one of them spinning out of control and chopping my head off, he thought.

He had plenty to worry about as it was. When he jumped free, then turned to grab Sienna’s hand and help her out, he saw flickers of crimson in the swirling black smoke on top of the chopper. The engine wasn’t just overheated; it was on fire. Jesus, if the flames reach the fuel tank…

Leaping down, Sienna saw the flames, too, her panicked look communicating that he didn’t have to tell her to run as far and fast as she could. They raced, dodging boulders, sprinting past bushes, charging along the slope. Malone’s throat, already irritated by the oily smoke, was made more raw by his quick, deep, strident breathing. His legs stretched to their maximum. Beside him, Sienna strained to run faster.

Hearing a whoosh behind him, Malone recognized the distinctive sound of flames reaching spilled fuel. He barely saw a gully suddenly appear before he had time to jump instead of stumble into it. He landed and rolled, Sienna tumbling next to him, the shock wave from an explosion striking his eardrums. It was far more powerful than the blast from a burning gas tank. Numerous secondary explosions were almost as strong, punctuated by the crackle of bullets. Jesus, had there been munitions aboard? Malone wondered in dismay as something else exploded. Chunks of smoking metal clanged off boulders and rebounded down the gully. Then the afternoon was silent, except for Malone’s and Sienna’s gasping attempt to catch their breath and the muted rumble of the unseen flames.

They stared apprehensively at each other, their eyes asking if either was hurt, each quietly responding, I’m all right, but what about you? Tasting sweat, smoke, and dust, Malone tried his arms and legs. After Sienna did the same and nodded in assurance, they rose cautiously to peer over the rim toward the blazing hulk of the chopper.

“How far is that airfield?” Sienna’s face was smeared with soot.

“Maybe a half mile.”

“We’re wasting time.” She climbed painfully out of the gully. “But if we ever get away, you’re going to tell me how you learned about this place.”

He didn’t know how to respond. Not that it mattered. As they climbed the rocky slope, another sound intruded. Malone now had an added taste in his mouth – coppery, that of fear – as he turned toward approaching engines and saw three four-wheel-drive vehicles speed past trees on a road below him. They swerved into the bumpy field that led in this direction.

People from a nearby farm? Malone wondered. Did they see the chopper go down and come to help? The state-of-the-art vehicles, almost military in design, made his heart sink with doubt. So did the relentlessness with which their occupants ignored the jostling punishment of the uneven terrain.

“It’s Derek,” Sienna said.

Despite her bruised legs, she spun toward the crest and ran.

12

As his vehicle jolted across the field, Bellasar gripped the steering wheel harder and glared through the windshield toward the smoke and flames billowing from the wreckage. “Does anybody see survivors?”

Increasing speed despite the shocks to the vehicle, he scanned the rocky slope. The spreading haze made it difficult to distinguish shapes. His vision was unsteady because of the jouncing shudder of the vehicle. Even so, he thought he saw figures moving to the right of the blazing wreckage. He shoved his foot harder onto the accelerator, stiffening his neck to keep his head from jerking back.

There damned well had better be survivors, he thought, steering sharply toward the right. It no longer mattered to him that he had been making arrangements for Sienna’s death. Now, more than anything, he wanted her alive. And Malone. He wanted to see their faces. He needed to study the fear in their eyes when he made them pay.

“I see movement!” The guard next to Bellasar pointed toward the right, toward where Bellasar steered.

Even the toughest civilian four-wheel-drive vehicle would have long since broken its suspension, so punishing was the rocky terrain. But one of Bellasar’s engineering teams had developed a military version that had civilian styling, rode well, was heavily armed, and would survive just about any hardship demanded of it. A number of drug lords and dictators had ordered the armor-plated model, but before making delivery, Bellasar had wanted to test it further. It gave him great satisfaction that its performance this afternoon left no doubt that it was ready.

You think you can get away from me? he mentally shouted toward the two partially glimpsed figures who scrambled up the slope. You think you have even the slightest chance?

Reaching the bottom of the slope, not bothering to reduce speed as he jolted upward, he saw the smoke disperse enough to verify that the scurrying figures were in fact Sienna and Malone. He raised the lid on a console next to him, exposing a button and two small joysticks. The button he pressed opened a port beneath each headlight, exposing the muzzle of a.30-caliber machine gun built into each wheel well.

Each weapon was capable of swiveling within a thirty-degree radius, of being raised and lowered within a similar range, and of firing independently. Bellasar didn’t worry that shots would bring the police. This was still his property; he sometimes tested weapons here. Farmers in the area would think it was business as usual. Judging the distance and angle, he used his right hand to maneuver the right stick, pressed a button on top of it, and heard a brrrrp, its vibration negligible as a stream of bullets tore up the slope to the right of his targets. He didn’t want to hit them. God no. He wanted to scare them and convince them that running any farther was futile. He wanted them alive, to make them suffer.

Sienna and Malone frantically changed direction, angling to the left as they charged up the slope. Bellasar switched to the other stick, maneuvered it, pressed the button on it, and sent a burst of bullets into the slope above them, spraying dirt, shattering rocks, and disintegrating bushes. He redirected the stick, curving the bullets downward to the right, then up again, blocking the next route they tried. Sienna and Malone flinched, bent low, and reversed their direction, sprinting again to the left, heading back toward the wreckage.

Bellasar tracked them with the left machine gun. About to press its button and tear up the slope farther to their left, he had to jerk his hand from the stick and grip the steering wheel, needing both hands to veer around a boulder that loomed ahead of him. The instant he was safely around it, he gripped the stick again and refocused his gaze on the running figures.

Or tried to. In the few seconds it had taken him to avoid the boulder, Sienna and Malone had reached the smoke from the wreckage. His vision obscured, Bellasar steered to the left now, following them, speeding farther up the hill. Without warning, a gully blocked his way. He stomped on the brakes so hard that he lurched painfully forward, his shoulder harness cutting into him. The guards in the back slammed forward. As the brakes gripped, tires skidding, the gully got closer, wider, deeper. Bellasar didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the vehicle stopped, its front end tilting downward. He exhaled.

Immediately he grabbed the microphone from the dashboard’s two-way radio. “Keep after them! Block their route!”

The machine guns in the other vehicles began shooting into the smoke.

“Damn it, don’t shoot to kill! I want them alive! Use your bullets to block their route!” Instantly he changed to another frequency, contacting Potter at the château.

Potter’s voice crackled from the radio. “The second helicopter has arrived.”

“Bring it. I’ve found them.” Bellasar blurted directions to where he was. “I’m activating a homing signal. Follow it.”

Dropping the microphone, Bellasar drew his pistol and hurried from the vehicle. “Spread out!” he ordered the guards. “They’re hiding up there in the smoke! As far as I know, Malone isn’t armed! You don’t need to shoot to kill! Find them! Bring them to me!”

Preparing to hurry down into the gully and up the other side, Bellasar took a second to admire the two vehicles beyond it as they sped up the slope on his left, veering among bushes and boulders, easily handling the rough landscape. The sound of their engines was solid and powerful. Five minutes from now, Alex and the second helicopter would arrive. Bellasar would order the pilot to hover over the wreckage. The downdraft from its whirling blades would disperse the smoke, making it easy to find where Sienna and Malone were trying to hide among the rocks. It’s only a matter of time, Bellasar assured himself. Soon I’ll have them. In fact, for a moment a deep sound blended with that of the vehicles and made him think that the second helicopter had arrived more quickly than he expected. As the deep sound became a rumble, he realized how wrong he was.

13

Coughing so hard that he feared he might vomit, his eyes watering from the smoke that swirled around him, Malone heard the vehicles roaring up the slope toward Sienna and him. The burning wreckage and the smoke from it temporarily shielded them, but the relentless vehicles would soon burst into view.

Hunched next to him behind a boulder, Sienna coughed as hard as he did. “Let’s see if we can move this thing,” she said.

“What?”

“This boulder.”

As the vehicles charged closer up the hill, Malone suddenly understood. The smoke thinned enough for him to see a glint of hope in her raw, red, irritated eyes. They rose to a crouch and pressed both hands against the boulder, shoving against it.

Harder! Groaning with effort, Malone felt something in him thrill as the boulder shifted.

More! The boulder tilted, rolling, gaining momentum, rumbling out of sight through the smoke.

They raced toward another. Desperation fueling their strength, they got it rolling faster than the first one and immediately rushed to another and then another, crisscrossing the slope, protecting both sides of the flaming wreckage.

The combined rumble reminded Malone of thunder. But the thunder became distant. The boulders were taking too long. They must have passed the vehicles and continued toward the bottom. At once, a crash of rock, glass, and metal echoed from below. A second crash was even more violent. Before the engines died, Sienna was already in motion. She ran up the slope, coughing, straining to break free of the smoke. A third crash made Malone’s spirits soar as he hurried after her.

Gagging, he left the smoke, but he was too distracted to enjoy the sweet, clean air he sucked into his lungs. The crest of the slope was only thirty yards ahead, but it might as well have been a mile. He had no way of telling how damaged the vehicles were. He didn’t dare waste time looking behind him to check. If the machine guns haven’t been disabled, we don’t have a chance, he thought.

Indeed, he did hear gunshots, but they were single fire, not from automatic weapons, and the bullets were ricocheting off rocks below him. That meant the gunmen were aiming as if they were on level ground. To hit a target moving uphill, they had to aim slightly above what they were shooting at, letting the target rise into their sights. But they would soon make that adjustment. Of that, Malone had no doubt.

Sienna was so propelled by fear that he had trouble keeping up with her. The top of the slope seemed as far away as when he had started. The single-fire bullets whacked closer behind him, and he realized with alarm that the gunmen weren’t making a mistake. They’re aiming low on purpose, he thought. They don’t want to kill us. They’re shooting toward our legs. They want to cripple us so Bellasar can take us alive.

What sounded like superfast bumblebees sped past his legs. One of them nicked his jeans and stung his left calf. Racing harder, he stared toward the top. He swore his eyes were playing tricks. Everything seemed to become magnified, the crest suddenly close before him. He saw Sienna disappear over it, and a moment later, chased by bullets, he joined her, lurching onto a flat ridge that led to a gradual descent to olive trees in a valley. In the distance was a gray ribbon of concrete flanked by a handful of matchbox-looking buildings: the airfield.

14

The crunch of metal and the shatter of glass sent a wave of nausea through Bellasar. His sick feeling quickly changed to the most intense fury he had ever known. His engineers had assured him that these vehicles could withstand an attack from assault rifles, grenades, and even a glancing hit from a rocket. But the boulders had crushed the front of the cars and bounced up to strike the bullet-resistant windshields, smashing through and crushing the men in the front seats.

Bellasar screamed in outrage. With the men from his car and the survivors who lurched from the other cars, he fired toward Sienna and Malone. Determined more than ever to take them alive, aiming at their legs, he emptied his pistol, but before he could eject its magazine and shove in a new one, they disappeared over the crest.

Cursing, Bellasar leapt back into his vehicle. The men with him barely had a chance to jump in before he rammed the gearshift into reverse, tore up dirt backing away from the gully, spun the steering wheel, and sped up the slope.

But the incline steepened, and the ground became more uneven. The engine, strained to its limit, could no longer propel the weight of the reinforced body. The more it slowed, the more Bellasar pressed the accelerator, until, with a bang that shook the vehicle, the transmission failed, the vehicle rolling backward. Bellasar stomped the brake pedal, twisted the steering wheel, and yanked the lever of the emergency brake. Slamming a fresh magazine into his pistol, he charged out and ran for the top.

15

As Malone reached the cover of the olive trees at the bottom of the slope, he risked a precious few seconds to catch his breath and check behind him. But any hope that Bellasar might have been left back there was destroyed when he saw the tiny figures of men hurry over the crest. At their lead, his suit and tie somehow more threatening than the rugged clothes of the guards, his broad shoulders and strong chest unmistakable, was Bellasar.

Malone raced on. The olive trees were dense enough that he couldn’t see Sienna, but the snap of branches and the crunch of footsteps ahead told him where to run to catch up to her. Despite his excellent physical condition, he had trouble narrowing the distance between them. At once he glimpsed her, the earth colors of her skirt and top helping her blend with the trees as she fled through them. He managed to join her as the trees gave way to a field, a fence, Quonset huts, and the airstrip.

All the while he and Sienna raced across the field, Malone was intensely aware of the cold spot on his back where he expected to be shot. Sienna got to the fence first, dropped to her back, pushed up the lowest strand of wire, and squirmed under. Shouts from the trees behind Malone added to his speed when he gripped a post and vaulted the fence to catch up to her.

The Quonset huts were rusted, he saw when he reached them. Cracks in the airstrip were choked with grass. Christ, it’s abandoned, he thought. Jeb, what have you sent me to? But even as unnerving doubts seized him, he and Sienna rounded a corner and almost bumped into a pickup truck. Past it were an old Renault sedan and a beat-up station wagon. Three single-propeller planes stood at the side of the runway.

About to hurry into the largest building, Malone bumped into a bearded man coming out dressed in mechanic’s coveralls and carrying a greasy rag.

With his limited French, Malone tried to blurt his apologies, quickly adding, “I’m looking for a man named Harry Lockhart.”

The man raised his eyebrows and hands in confusion.

“Harry Lockhart.” Malone couldn’t help noticing the frown Sienna gave him. “Do you know a man named…”

The mystified expression on the Frenchman’s face made Malone give up.

“Speak English, monsieur. I don’t understand your French. I’ve never heard of anyone named Harry Lockhart.”

“But he’s supposed to meet me here!”

Sienna’s frown became more severe.

“Are you certain you came to the right airfield?” the Frenchman asked.

“Is there another one around here?”

“No.”

“Then I’m in the right place.”

“You’re bleeding, monsieur.”

“What?”

“Your face. You’re bleeding.”

Malone had assumed the moisture he felt was sweat. For a moment, he feared he’d been shot. Then he realized that the blood came from the scabs on his cheek and mouth. The exertion had opened them.

Two other men stepped from the building. They, too, wore coveralls, and although one was a little heavier than the other, they looked like brothers.

The first man turned to them and asked something in French.

At the mention of the name Harry Lockhart, they shook their heads no, then looked puzzled at the blood on Malone’s face.

Damn it, Jeb, you promised he’d be here! Malone thought.

“What happened to you?” the first man asked in English. “Were you in those explosions we heard?”

Sienna kept glancing nervously back toward the field they had run across. “We can’t wait any longer. If this guy Lockhart isn’t here to help us…” She started to run.

Malone spoke more frantically to the Frenchmen. “Did anybody show up here in the past couple of weeks and say he was waiting for Chase Malone.”

“No, monsieur. The only people who come here are the three of us and a few others in the area who like to fly old planes.”

You bastard, Jeb. You swore you’d back me up.

The Frenchman’s gaze drifted toward the sky and the swiftly approaching sound of a helicopter.

Oh shit, Malone thought. He pulled his steel and gold Rolex from his wrist and put it in the man’s hand.

“This is worth six thousand dollars. Show me how fast you can get your plane in the air.”

16

Halfway across the field, Bellasar faltered at the sound of a small plane sputtering, then droning. The engine gained more power, sounding as if it was about to take off. No! he raged, charging forward again, faster. If Sienna and Malone are in that plane…

The engine reached full power, the distinctive thrust of a plane speeding along a runway. I’ve lost them! Bellasar thought. He came to a breathless stop. His sweat-drenched suit and white shirt clinging to him, he stared at the sky above the metal buildings. Raising his pistol, his men doing the same, he got ready to fire the instant the plane soared into view. His intentions were rash, he knew, given that there would probably be witnesses at the airfield. The imprecision bothered him also, the risk of stray bullets killing Sienna and Malone rather than merely forcing the plane down. But, by God, he had to do something. He wasn’t just going to stand there and watch Malone fly away with his wife.

17

When Potter saw the smoking wreckage of the helicopter and then the three abandoned vehicles, two of them crushed, the doors of the third one open, as if its occupants had left in a hurry, he was reminded of the aftermath of an ambush he’d seen in the Balkans a month earlier. Except, in this case, there weren’t any bodies. Where was… About to tell the pilot to keep a distance until he figured out what was going on, he heard his cell phone ring, and he answered it.

“I’m in the next valley!” Bellasar shouted. “There’s an airstrip! Sienna and Malone are in a plane, about to take off!”

As Bellasar told him what to do, Potter felt uncustomarily euphoric. The helicopter increased speed, clearing the top of the hill. Immediately the airfield was in view. So was the tiny outline of the single-prop airplane taking off. Although the airplane rapidly gained altitude, the turbo-charged helicopter climbed much faster, making Potter feel energized, pressing his stomach pleasantly against his back.

The airplane leveled off, speeding toward rugged hills to the west. The helicopter raced after it, gaining, quickly coming abreast of it on the left.

Potter studied the shapes of passengers in the back-seat and motioned for the plane’s pilot to set down.

The pilot ignored him.

The plane dipped sharply.

So did the helicopter.

The plane veered more sharply to the right.

So did the helicopter.

“Get ahead of him,” Potter said. “Keep cutting him off. Force him to go back to the airfield.”

But before the helicopter’s pilot could do what he was told, the plane soared.

So did the helicopter.

Unexpectedly, the plane swooped toward the countryside and banked beneath the helicopter, speeding in the opposite direction.

The pilot muttered, chasing the plane, narrowing the distance between them. Now he matched everything the airplane did, dipping, banking, soaring. Each maneuver bringing him closer, the pilot took the offensive and cut ahead of the plane, compelling it to turn. When it dipped, he anticipated which side the plane’s pilot was going to choose and was waiting for him, forcing him to turn again. When the plane soared, the helicopter pilot again anticipated which side he would bank to and waited to block his way.

As the helicopter nudged closer, the bearded face of the plane’s pilot became distinct. Although his Plexiglas window was scratched and dusty, there was no mistaking his alarm. Potter’s French was excellent, and so was his ability to read lips. The pilot was cursing.

The man grabbed his radio microphone. The chopper’s pilot found the frequency he was using. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the Frenchman demanded.

“Go back to the airfield. Set down,” Potter said.

“You don’t have a right.”

“Your passengers give me the right.”

“What passengers are you talking about?”

A suspicion struck Potter so hard that he felt punched. “In the seat behind you!”

“Those are duffel bags!”

“Get closer!” Potter ordered his pilot. When the pilot started to object that it was too dangerous, Potter shouted, “Do it!” Staring as the plane seemed to enlarge next to him, he strained to see past the dusty rear Plexiglas and decipher the dark forms that he had taken for granted were Malone and Sienna. No! he thought, distinguishing the torso-shaped outlines of what were indeed duffel bags.

“Go back!” he yelled to his pilot.

18

“How much did they pay you?” Bellasar demanded.

The overweight man in coveralls looked baffled.“Me? They didn’t pay me anything. I don’t know what’s going on! They gave Pierre an expensive watch for doing what he was going to do anyhow – take off and fly to Marseilles!”

“Where are they?”

The man pointed toward a path that went through trees on the opposite side of the airfield. “They stole two bicycles.”

Right, Bellasar thought. Or maybe you sold the bicycles for one of Sienna’s bracelets. “Then it isn’t too late. They can’t go far.” He pulled out a money clip and peeled off several large-domination bills. “Give me the key to the station wagon.”

“It won’t do any good.”

“What are you talking about?”

The man pointed toward the front right tire.

It was flat. So was a tire on the pickup truck and the Renault. “Before the man left, he did that.”

“Fix them!” Furious about the waste of time, Bellasar didn’t wait for Potter to return. He ran toward the path. Potter will scan the countryside from above, he promised himself. A man and a woman on bicycles won’t be hard to see. We’ll keep going. We’ll catch them. I’ll never stop.

19

Pedaling as hard as he could, Malone steered around a wooded bend. The trees opened up. Facing a paved road, he squeezed the brake levers on the handlebars. To his right, from beyond a curve, he heard a truck approaching.

Sienna stopped beside him.

“Quickly,” Malone said. “We have to get to the other side.”

He dismounted and hurried with the bicycle, laying it on the pavement in front of the yet-unseen truck. After wiping his hand across his face, smearing the blood over a wider area, he lay on the road and pulled the bicycle over him.

“Look panicked,” he told Sienna. “Wave for the driver to stop.”

The truck sped into view. Sprawled on the ground, gripping his leg, allowing himself to show pain, Malone suddenly worried that the truck was approaching too fast for it to be able to stop in time. Tangled with the bicycle, he wouldn’t be able to crawl free and roll to the side of the road fast enough.

“Jesus” – Sienna waved frantically – “he’s going to hit us!”

As she lunged to pull Malone’s bicycle off him, brakes squealed. But they didn’t seem to do any good. The truck kept hurtling toward them. She threw the bicycle to the side and dragged Malone off the road as the truck’s brakes squealed louder and smoke came from the tires. On an angle, the truck skidded to a stop twenty yards beyond where Malone had been lying.

The truck, larger than a pickup, had wooden sides, across which a tarpaulin was stretched. The inside was filled with ladders, sawhorses, and lumber. The driver’s door banged open. A sunburned man wearing sawdust-spotted clothes ran around the back and shouted angrily. The man’s French was far too rapid for Malone to understand, but Sienna answered him as rapidly, gesturing toward the blood on Malone’s face.

The man’s anger turned to surprise and then shock. Paralyzed for a moment, he broke into motion, rushing to help Malone toward the truck.

“I told him you were hit by a car! He’s taking you to a doctor!” Sienna said.

“Ask him if there’s room in the back for the bicycles.”

As the man helped Sienna set the bikes out of sight under the tarpaulin, Malone climbed into the front and leaned his head back as if in pain. The next moment, the driver hurried behind the steering wheel, Sienna getting in the other side. Putting the truck into gear, the driver sped along the road.

“He says the nearest hospital is ten minutes away,” Sienna explained.

“That might not be soon enough.” Malone tried to sound in agony. Despite the rattle of the truck, he heard the helicopter in the distance. Hoping the driver would go faster, he made himself wince and moan.

The man came out with another torrent of French.

Malone barely listened, too busy concentrating on the approaching sound of the helicopter. He assumed that the truck would soon attract its attention. After all, he hadn’t seen any other vehicles on this road. How long would it take Bellasar to conclude that they had reached the road and caught a ride?

Isolated houses appeared. As the truck sped around another curve, Malone saw cars, trucks, bicycles, and people walking. The driver had reached a town, its speed-zone sign forcing him to slow. Imagining the view from the chopper, Malone had a mental overhead image of the speck of a truck blending with other specks. At a four-way stop, he noticed vehicles heading away in each direction and finally relaxed, deciding that for now there was no way Bellasar could track them.

For now, but Bellasar wouldn’t stop searching, and plenty of other problems remained, Malone knew. He needed to convince the truck driver not to go into the hospital with him. He needed to find a place where he could clean himself up. A men’s room near the emergency ward perhaps. Then he had to find a way out of town before Bellasar’s men converged on it. The first chance he got, he would use the emergency phone number Jeb had given him. But that was another problem. Why hadn’t Jeb followed through on the rescue plan they’d arranged? And that question, in turn, made Malone dread an even more immediate problem, the hard look in Sienna’s eyes as she studied him, impatient to ask how he’d known about the airfield and what the hell this was all about.