Gunmetal Gray

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

They returned to their suite and sat together on their private patio by their private pool, the moonlight the only illumination. Zoya opened a bottle of Australian Shiraz left in the room for them by management, and Court fought a joke about having room service bring a bottle of vodka instead.

Court had planned on calling in to Brewer tonight; it was late morning at Langley, and he wanted her to know he was still in the process of determining if Fan was on the adjacent property. But he realized he didn’t want to step out of the room now, worried that the Russian woman might be asleep when he returned.

Suzanne Brewer would have to sit and stew till tomorrow.

They both reclined on deck loungers and sipped wine, and they looked out at the ocean to the southwest. A massive luxury yacht, easily 150 to 200 feet in length, had anchored a mile offshore. Court picked up the binoculars from the table next to him and looked it over. He saw a swimming pool, a helicopter on deck, and a name on the bow. It was the Medusa, with a port of registry in Genoa.

He put the binoculars down, then looked to the Russian woman. He could tell she wanted to say something, and he marveled at how comfortable she had become with him in the past day. He attributed it to their shared experiences, and he wondered if she could read him as well as he thought he could read her.

He didn’t press her to talk, but when she finally did speak, he found himself disappointed that she was thinking about work.

“There are things you aren’t telling me about this operation.”

Court looked out to the reflection of moonlight on the sea. “Yes.”

Zoya downed the last of her Shiraz. “Well… at least you are honest. Answer one more thing for me, then I will let it go.”

“Okay.”

“The things you aren’t telling me… if you were in my position, and you found out about them… would you run, or would you stay?”

Court reached for his glass. “I’d stay, unquestionably. I’m hiding from you how little I know about what’s going on here. It’s not as cut-and-dried as I’ve let on. My country’s motivations to get Fan might be muddier than I am comfortable with.”

Then he added, “But I’m not hiding anything about us.”

She turned to him. “There is an ‘us’?”

Court almost spit out his wine. “No… I mean… I am referring to what we are doing here. Everything I’ve told you is true.” He added, “I wouldn’t lie to you.” As soon as he said it he regretted it, not because it was a promise he didn’t feel he could keep, but he thought it came out sounding cheap, hollow, fake.

After a time, she said, “I think I believe you.”

“Good.”

Zoya said, “There is something I haven’t told you.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of things,” Court quipped. “I don’t even know your name.”

“No. You don’t.”

After a long pause, Court said, “This is where you tell me your name.”

“No, this is where I tell you what I did to make this all happen.” She sat up and put her glass down. “The only reason the Chamroon Syndicate has Fan in the first place is because I contacted them. In Cambodia. You’d escaped over the border, my task force had been taken away from me, and I needed to somehow get Fan away from you. I had no other options, so I contacted the first organization I could find who had men near that border. They picked Fan up and brought him to Thailand. I thought I was the one person who knew where he was, so I could go get him.

“Then somehow you found out, and my former task force found out.” She shook her head. “I have no idea how that happened.”

Court answered this. “Fan sent a message to Taiwanese intelligence. It was picked up by our side somehow. Maybe that’s how the Russians — I mean your guys — found out.”

Zoya said, “I didn’t account for that possibility.”

“Don’t feel bad. You had a solid plan.”

“That’s all you are going to say?”

He waved his glass in the air. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does. I was willing to let Thai gangsters kill you to achieve my mission. You, on the other hand, cast your entire mission aside to rescue me and a bunch of prostitutes who meant nothing to you.”

Court said, “You were close to me during the firefight. Behind a column. But you ran over to the other women, too. You were going to try to save them yourself.”

When she did not respond Court said, “Weren’t you?”

Zoya looked out to sea. “I saw that you had Chamroon. I went over to the women just for cover. I was looking for a gun. I would have shot you if I’d found one.”

“Well, I am glad things turned out the way they did.”

Zoya, still looking into the silvery moonlight, just said, “Tell me why you did it. I want to understand.”

Court scratched the back of his head. He didn’t know how to explain himself, because normally he would have no need to. But for some reason he wanted her to understand. Not to justify his actions, but instead to help her, because he could tell she was completely adrift, both as an intelligence officer and as a person.

“Occasionally one is presented with moral questions that are different from the mission itself. I don’t like it. I would rather keep things simple, but life gets in the way of the job sometimes. At that spa in Bangkok, in that brief moment, you and those other women were the most important thing. The mission is my job, but sometimes I divert a little, for the sake of others.” He smiled now. “Doesn’t make me a great guy. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to shoot some asshole through the forehead five seconds later.”

Zoya sighed. “I believe in keeping things simple, too. But it is not always possible.” A stray cloud passed in front of the moon, dimming the light on them both. Zoya asked, “Have you ever killed an innocent person?”

From the timing and placement of the question, Court realized she was asking it for her own reasons, not really to elicit information from him. Still, he hesitated a long time before answering, and he answered truthfully: “Yes.”

“Under orders?”

“Yes.”

“Does that help? That you were ordered to do it?”

Court thought about his answer. “No. Not much. Not enough, anyway.”

Zoya nodded now, staring deeply into Court’s eyes. “You and I have so much in common.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.” Court said it with sincerity. He stood. “We should try to get some sleep.”

Court and Zoya each moved bedding from the king-sized bed, as they had the night before. She made a small and neat pallet for herself in the walk-in closet, and Court just tossed a pillow and a blanket on the floor on the far side of the bed from the entrance to the room.

After getting ready for bed they both lay down, fifteen feet apart and unable to see each other, but they continued talking across the room. Mostly they talked about nothing. Every now and then, however, they would discuss some aspect of their plan for the next day.

The conversation trailed off and then picked back up for a few minutes, and it trailed off again.

Court lay there in the dark now, gazing around at the room he could see from his position, using the significant moonlight that poured in from the glass door to the balcony.

For ten minutes he heard only his own breath, his own heartbeat.

And then he sat up.

He didn’t think he had made any noise, but he heard a stirring in the closet almost immediately. He climbed to his feet, and a few seconds later he heard Zoya rise, as well.

She whispered, “What is it? You heard something?”

Court moved around the bed, closer to her.

She stepped out of the closet now, revealing herself in the moonlight. She wore a plain white T-shirt and blue cotton track pants; her hair was hooked behind her ears, but a little drooped down in her face. She cocked her head, trying to listen for whatever noise caused the American to get up.

But the American hadn’t been stirred by a noise.

He stepped close to her, face-to-face, close enough to where he could feel the warmth of her body. He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him. He kissed her deeply, and for a brief moment, she kissed him back.

Then she pulled away, not out of his grasp, just back a little. With her hands gently on his hips she looked up at him. “This isn’t keeping things simple.”

Court said, “It is for me. Doing nothing feels impossible.”

Zoya said, “I just… you remind me of someone. I worry that it is affecting my actions.”

“Someone good, I hope?”

She blinked hard, and Court wondered if she was going to cry. It was certainly not the emotion he’d hoped to elicit from her right now.

But she recovered and said, “Someone very good. Someone so good that it worries me that perhaps I am projecting something onto you. Hoping for too much from you. Normally I have a hard time letting my guard down, it is dangerous to do, but…”

Court held her tight. “You’re safe. Tonight, you’re safe.”

He kissed her again, and now she brought her hands to the sides of his face, pulled him even closer, and together they stood there in the dark, kissing and touching and breathing each other’s air, and then they moved back into the closet, lowered down on the floor, and for now, for tonight, they were both safe, and tomorrow’s dangers seemed like they were still far out to sea.