Fault Line

25 A KIND OF MADNESS

Ben parked on California and walked back to the Ritz-Carlton. It was nearly three in the morning now, and the area was deserted. He wasn't expecting a problem outside the hotel. At this point, anyone waiting for him would likely be inside.

Russians that morning, an American that night. He wasn't sure what it meant. Different groups with an interest in Obsidian? Could be that. Could be whoever was behind this had run out of Russian contractors and had turned to someone else.

If anyone was waiting for him inside, he had a good chance of surprising them. The guy he'd killed at Alex's wasn't carrying a cell phone or a radio. That meant he wasn't expected to check in, at least not right away.

He'd been lulled after Vesuvio, thinking the girl was okay, being insufficiently tactical as a result. He'd been lucky. He wasn't going to rely on luck again.

The interior of the hotel was so still you could hear the silence. A lone woman greeted him at the reception counter, but other than that, the lobby, the bar… it was all deserted.

He took the elevator to the sixth floor, then the stairs down to four. He had his gun out the moment he was in the stairwell. Anyone he encountered on the stairs at this hour who wasn't dragging a mop and bucket wasn't likely to be friendly.

He hugged the wall on the approach to Sarah's room, then ducked low as he went past it on the remote chance someone was in there and looking out through the peephole. He pulled the goggles onto his head but not yet over his eyes. He had to account for every possibility now. Everything. Not just a human ambush, but something remote, too.

Getting his own door open was nerve-racking. Countering a threat from an emplaced IED required a totally different set of tactics than countering a threat from a human ambush, and pausing in front of his door to examine it for signs of the former left his ass badly exposed to the latter. Well, the doors were thick; unlikely someone would risk a shot through one of them. But still.

He found no wires or other signs of anything that would have closed a circuit when the door was open. The magnetic lock showed no signs of tampering. He slid his key card in with his left hand, the Glock held at chest level with his right. He eased the door open an inch and held it there, sighting down the Glock. Nothing on the other side. No wires or anything else out of place around the doorjamb. He reached inside and flicked the master switch. The room went dark.

He let the door close and moved back down the hallway, away from the room. Could be someone was watching from outside. He'd circled the hotel on the way over, of course, but he could have missed someone. He didn't want that someone to see the lights go out at the edges of the curtains of room 767, wait one minute, and then remotely trigger an IED. Or at least he didn't want to be in the room when it happened.

He waited two minutes. Okay, if it was going to happen that way, it would have happened already. He went back to the door, pulled the goggles down, and went in, engaging the privacy lock behind him.

It took him three minutes to confirm that he was alone. Confirming no one had left him an IED love letter took another twenty.

He sat down on the floor, his back against the bed, and pulled the goggles off. He blew out a long breath. Christ, what a day. He ought to be exhausted, but he was still too wired to feel it.

Okay. One more thing, and then he could relax.

The girl.

There were three ways he could go in. First, through the common door, if she hadn't locked it from her side. Second, he could use his key card on the regular door, if she hadn't engaged the privacy lock. He wasn't optimistic that either of these would pan out. So the third option was the most promising: just kick open the common door. It was heavy wood, but it opened into her room, and the metal jamb around it would deform enough, and pull free of the surrounding frame enough, for his purposes.

He opened the door on his side, slowly, carefully, wanting to make sure there was nothing emplaced between the door on his side and the one on hers that could close a circuit. He was surprised to find that the door on her side wasn't just unlocked but was wide open. He was glad he'd left the room lights off and the goggles on. If he hadn't, he would have been instantly silhouetted.

He moved in carefully, not liking that the door was open, sensing a trap. In the green night-vision glow, he saw her on the bed. She was on her back, covered to the neck by the quilt, her long black hair spilling across the white linen pillows. Her right arm was back, resting just above her head. Her left was under the covers. He'd seen during the day she was right-handed, so having her strong hand in view, and seeing it was empty, was marginally comforting. She seemed to be sleeping, but she had played clueless in Vesuvio convincingly, too. He kept an eye on her while he silently cleared the room. It was empty.

He walked over to the bed and watched her for a moment. Her breathing was slow and even. She didn't stir.

He'd noted the privacy lock on her door was engaged. Which turned the open common door into a kind of funnel. He didn't like that at all. It didn't matter where he was going, he didn't like coming in the way he was supposed to.

Keeping the Glock on her, he eased aside the quilt and exposed her left hand. It was empty.

He pulled off the goggles, set them down, and flicked on the nightstand light. Her eyes popped open and she sat up violently in the bed, blinking and squinting and holding the quilt to her body. “What the hell?” she said. “What are you doing?”

“You sound unhappy to see me,” he said, relishing the moment despite himself.

“You're fucking right I'm unhappy. You can't just come in here like this. What are you doing? What do you want?”

“Don't play dumb, sweetheart. I know you're good at it, but the act is getting old.”

She looked at the Glock as though noticing it for the first time, as indeed probably she was. “Why the fuck are you pointing a gun at me? Are you crazy?”

He kept the pistol pointed at her. And because it was his own habit never to sleep farther than arm's reach from a weapon, he said, “Get out of bed.”

“The hell with that. Get out of my room.”

He took hold of the quilt and yanked it entirely off her. It flew to the opposite wall and slipped to the ground.

She leaped to the opposite side of the bed. “Get out of here!” she yelled.

She was wearing nothing but white panties and a white camisole, and for a moment he doubted himself. But how many soldiers had made the same fatal mistake about a sweet-seeming woman the instant before she detonated a suicide bomb?

He circled the bed, keeping the gun on her. “Shut up,” he said. “And keep your hands where I can see them if you don't want to get shot.”

She stared at him, breathing hard. “You're crazy. You're really crazy.”

“You're right,” he said, on her side of the bed now and moving toward her. “I'm mad enough to do something crazy, that's for sure. Three people trying to kill me in one day? That'd make anyone crazy.”

She didn't answer. No, of course she didn't. He came closer. She backed into a corner, a wall to one side, the nightstand to the left.

“You really had me fooled for a while,” he said. “I'll give you credit for that. But it's done now. The guy waiting for me at Alex's house? He told me everything before he died. I had to work on him first, but in the end, he talked.”

“I don't want to know this,” she said.

He stepped in closer. “Then you shouldn't have gotten involved. But here's the good news for you. I have one question. Answer it to my satisfaction and you'll be okay.”

“What question?”

“Who do you work for?”

“You're not making any sense!”

“See, that's not satisfying me.”

And suddenly, she was advancing on him. “Will you stop looking at me as the enemy?” she yelled, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “I'm Iranian, so that's all you can see! Everything that happens, you distort it in your mind to prove what you already want to believe! Why? Why do you need to believe I'm the enemy? What are you getting out of it?”

He was so surprised he almost took a step back, but then stopped. He was so sure of himself when he'd come in that he'd been expecting her to fold right away. Or to deny it unconvincingly, and then fold. What he hadn't anticipated was a counterattack. Especially one this loud, which could attract attention. He needed to regain control.

“Someone made a call tonight,” he said. Keeping the gun on her suddenly felt silly. And at this range, and in her agitated state, there was even a risk of an accident. He slipped it back into the holster. “Someone who knew I was going to Alex's house. There was no one else but you.”

“What are you talking about? I didn't know you were going to Alex's house. I didn't know where the hell you were going. All you said was you had something to do.”

“You could have figured it out.” As soon as he said it, it sounded weak. Christ, had that really been all he was going on? No, the guy asked where Alex was, too. But… could that have been because they didn't care about the girl? Alex was the primary, that was obvious. In fact, they might not even have known the girl had gone into hiding. Whoever they were, their resources weren't unlimited. They might have been saving Sarah for later, if they gave a shit at all.

“So this person you say you tortured tonight,” she said. “What did he tell you? Nothing, that's what. You're making this up. Making it up to scare me.”

He hadn't said he'd tortured anyone, exactly, although he'd hoped the idea would frighten her. Regardless, something wasn't right here. Or rather, something wasn't wrong. She was alone in the room, unarmed, asleep or at a minimum doing a nice job of pretending. It didn't make sense.

“Why did you leave the adjoining door open?” he said.

“I felt like it.”

Yeah, he knew she was up to something. “Why?”

“None of your fucking business!” she said. She went to poke him in the chest again, and he snatched her finger in his fist.

“I asked you a question,” he said, squeezing hard and backing her up against the wall.

“Go ahead,” she said, grimacing. “Break it. Break my fingers. Waterboard me. Isn't that what you do? You torture people until they tell you whatever you want to hear?”

Why had she left that door open? It had to be because she wanted to make it easy for him to come in that way. But then why wasn't there anyone waiting in ambush, why wasn't she armed? What was the point? Why would she want him to be able to-

Oh, you idiot.

It all fit. It was all obvious. It was embarrassingly simple, and you'd have to be blind or, let's face it, fixated to have missed it.

He looked down, aware for the first time of how little she was wearing, how little was covering her. The shape of her breasts beneath the sheer material of the camisole, the smooth, caramel skin of her belly above her panties…

He let go of her finger and put his palm on the wall, next to her head. “Why did you leave the door open?” he said.

“I told you, none of your fucking business.”

God, she was beautiful. He thought he'd noticed before, but he hadn't. Not like this.

“Why?” he said again, his voice lower.

“I'm not going to tell you,” she said. She tried to go around him and he put his other hand against the wall next to her, boxing her in on both sides.

“I want you to tell me,” he said.

“No.”

Was she breathing harder now? He knew he was. He could see her nipples, hard through the fabric of the camisole.

He took a step closer and inclined his head so that his lips were only a few inches from her cheek.

“Maybe I already know,” he said.

“You don't know anything about me.”

“I know something,” he said, moving closer.

She looked at him, her gaze angry, defiant, her lips parted, her breath whistling in and out from between them. He felt his heart pounding, heard it in his ears.

He leaned closer and she turned her head sharply away. His cheek was against hers now, the sound of her breathing loud in his ear. He could smell her hair, her skin. He moved in closer still and pressed against her, and the soft, full warmth of her breasts against him was a kind of madness.

He took one hand from the wall and put it on her hip, then let it glide up, caressing her ribs, the swell of her breast, her neck, her cheek. He eased her head inward. She resisted for a moment, then turned with a strange sound, half growl, half cry, and met his lips, her mouth open, her tongue on his.

He took her head in both hands and kissed her hard, his heart pounding, a buzzing in his ears. He felt unmoored, as though he ‘d lost his hold on something and was rushing away through the dark. He was still pressed against her and now she was pressing back. He was so hard it actually hurt.

He wasn't thinking anymore, he just needed her naked, needed it. Nothing else mattered, nothing else was real. He took hold of the top of the camisole with both hands and pulled hard in opposite directions. The sound of the fabric tearing filled his ears, and then her breasts were in his hands, and they were beautiful, she was beautiful.

She put her fingers through the gaps in the front of his shirt and pulled, and the buttons popped off with a machine gun cadence. A part of his mind thought, Shouldn't be surprised, look at the way she patted you down at Vesuvio, tit for tat, and then she was leaning forward, her mouth on his neck, her fingers working at his buckle. He dropped the holster as she was pulling his belt free. She fumbled with his zipper while he shrugged off his jacket and shirt, and then fuck it, he couldn't stand it anymore, he couldn't wait, he got his own pants open and stepped out of them. He kicked them aside and took her in his arms again. She wrapped a hand around him and squeezed and he felt it all the way through his abdomen.

He put his arms under her ass and lifted her. She gave a cry of surprise and wrapped her legs around his waist. He spun around, took two steps from the wall, and lowered her to the floor. He kissed her again, kissed her neck, her breasts, then broke away. Her panties were stretched taut across her hips and he wrapped his fingers through the fabric and pulled, tearing one side, then the other, then tossed them aside, watching her, looking in her eyes, seeing the hunger in them, the want, and then he was touching her, making her groan, making her writhe, and she was so wet this had to be real, it had to be, no one could be this kind of actress. He brought his knees forward, spreading her legs, then lowered himself onto her, wanting to fuck her so badly it obliterated everything else in his mind.

And then he was inside her, and thank God, there was nothing more, there was nothing better, he was like a drowning man gulping down mouthful after mouthful of lifesaving air. She gasped and moved against him, her ankles coming together behind his back, her hands on his face, pulling him to her, kissing him. They moved that way for a while and he willed himself to try to slow down, to be more gentle, and then he couldn't anymore, and he reached down with both hands and took hold of her ass and brought her up against him while he moved more deeply inside her, again and again and again. He closed his eyes and saw swirling colors, black and violet and green, heard her moaning and felt her hands in his hair and on his face and the heat of her body everywhere. Her legs tightened and she moved against him more urgently and she cried out into his mouth and he could feel her coming, coming under and all around him, and then he was coming, too, all the danger and uncertainty and insanity of the day tightening around him like a vise and then suddenly, miraculously, bursting open and letting everything go.

Slowly, carefully, he let go of her ass and brought his arms up, taking some of his weight on his elbows. She said, “No, I want to feel you,” and he let himself relax a little. She circled her arms around his neck, her legs still around his back, and he could feel a sound coming with each of her panting breaths that was almost a purr. They lay like that, his heart slowing, his breathing coming back to normal.

He rolled off her onto his back and turned his head to look into her eyes. He wanted to say, You're beautiful, but he didn't. Instead he said, “I'm sorry.”

She laughed. “I'm not.”

“No, I meant-”

“I know what you meant.”

He sighed. “I've had a bad week.”

She turned on her side to face him, her elbow on the floor, her head propped against her hand. “I get the feeling it's been going on longer than a week,” she said gently.

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “You have a daughter, an ex-wife, and a brother, and you never see any of them, never even talk to them. That's more than a bad week.”

“It's complicated.”

“You know what they say: ‘Take heart. The common denominator in all your dysfunctional relationships-

“ ‘Is you.’ Yeah, I've heard that.”

Christ, she was tough. He imagined what it would be like to be in some kind of relationship with her. He wouldn't win many arguments, that was for sure.

“Look,” he said, “you were right in the bar. I can't… I can't have them depend on me. I mean, what's worse, popping in on my daughter a few times a year, or just being gone entirely? All the first would do is make her aware of my absence, make her aware of some loss. With the second, there's no one to miss. So no loss.”

“I don't get it. If no one depends on you, you can't let anyone down, is that it?”

“That's not what I'm saying.”

“Want to know what I think?”

“Alex always asks me that. I always tell him no.”

“Does he tell you anyway?”

“Of course.”

“Then I will, too. What you're describing? It's like stealing. Stealing an inheritance the person doesn't even know she has. Will she miss the money? Will she even know it's gone, or feel diminished by its absence? No. But just because the person isn't aware of the theft doesn't make you any less a thief.”

“They teach you that in law school?”

“What happened with you and Alex, anyway?”

“We drifted.”

“Come on, no one drifts like that. He doesn't even know you were married, or that he has a niece.”

He looked away from her for a moment, trying to decide what, or whether, to tell her. He didn't know where to begin. “We had a sister,” is what came out. And he went on from there. He didn't mean to say much. But once he started talking, he found it hard to stop.

“Your poor family,” she said, when he was done. “I thought mine had problems.”

He laughed harshly. “What family? There's no one left.”

“There's you and Alex.”

“Alex blames me for the whole thing.”

“He told you that?”

“Not in those words. But he does.”

They were quiet for a moment. She said, “Did you enlist to get away from what happened with your sister?”

“No. I had decided before the accident. My parents didn't want me to. They put a lot of pressure on me, but this is what I wanted. Since I was a kid.”

“I think it's good you enlisted.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Are you serious? I thought you thought I'm a sadistic, torturing baby killer.”

“I don't think that. I was just trying to get under your skin. Anyway, that's not what I meant. I think it's good you enlisted because it's what you wanted. I wish I had your attitude about standing up to my parents. But… you were right in the bar, too. I don't know what I want.”

He didn't respond.

She said, “Why are you helping Alex?”

He looked at her. “This is helping him?”

She laughed. “He doesn't have to know about this.”

“Yeah, I think that's best.”

“Why, though? I mean, you're so estranged and everything. And yet, here you are.”

He thought about it for a moment. The bottom line was, he wasn't sure himself.

“He needs my help,” is all he could think to say.

He wanted her to ask more. Maybe it would help him figure it out.

Instead she said, “You really think he's… interested in me?”

“Come on, look at you.”

“That's all you're going on?”

“Believe me, that's a lot. But no. Like I said, I can tell. What about you? You were never interested in him?”

There was a pause. She said, “He's a good-looking guy, and there's a lot to like. But… I don't know, he reminds me of the guys I went out with in college and law school. I don't want to keep repeating myself.”

“What do I remind you of?”

She looked at him. “You don't remind me of anything. But at the same time, you do.”

He shook his head. “I don't follow you.”

She smiled. “You don't have to.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Shhh. Why don't you just apologize to me again?”

“I'm sorry.”

She eased a leg over his body, then moved astride him, her hands on the floor on either side of his head. She leaned in close, her hair cascading down past his face, enveloping him, and looked into his eyes.

“That's not much of an apology,” she said.

He put his hands on her waist.

“Let me rephrase it,” he said.