Last Snow

TWENTY-THREE

DENNIS PAULL awoke in a room full of windows. Early morning light flooded the polished wood floor, by which he knew he wasn’t in a hospital or institutional room. He wasn’t bound, either. He was, however, disoriented. Where was he? What happened? The last thing he remembered . . . Christ, his head hurt.

“I have something for that headache.”

He turned his head at the sound of a woman’s voice and immediately experienced a tightness where the dart had sunk in. The woman was dressed in a conservatively tailored suit that was too stylish to have been bought on even a G-15 salary.

“Dr. Denise Nyland. I’m a neurologist.” She smiled as she held out two pills in one hand and a glass of water in another. “Here, these will help.” When he hesitated, she added, “They’re just Tylenol, I assure you.”

He took them from her and, when he had checked the logo imprinted on each tablet, he swallowed them with the entire glass of water.

“I know you must have a lot of questions, Mr. Secretary,” she said. “All of them—and more—will be answered shortly. In the meantime, I suggest you rest while I tell you where you are.” She glanced out one of the windows, where a marble fountain plumed water into the air. Beyond were lawns and carefully sculpted shrubbery, even perhaps a small maze, though from his present angle he couldn’t be certain. He rose from the chair in which he’d been placed and at once felt a wave of dizziness, so that he was obliged to sit right back down.

“You’re in Neverwood, an estate owned by the Alizarin Global Group. I’m employed by the firm.”

Paull fought his way through the vertigo and the pounding in his head to pay strict attention. Alizarin Global was the entity that had paid for General Brandt’s off-the-grid trips to Russia. He’d never gotten around to Googling it, his mind taken up by grief, remorse, self-pity, and rage following the news of Louise’s death.

“Then you must be the one who concocted the chemical that was on the dart.” Paull had trouble enunciating, as if his mouth had been shot up with novocaine.

“Neverwood is in Maryland, precisely ninety miles from the White House,” Doctor Nyland said, pointedly ignoring his remark.

Paull frowned, which caused the pain in his head to eddy up. “Why was I brought here?”

“In a moment, Mr. Secretary, all will be made clear.” That professional smile, clean and icy as a toothpaste ad, held no malice whatsoever. “For the moment let it suffice to say that no one means you any harm. As soon as you are briefed, you’ll be handed the keys to your car. You’ll be free to go without any strings attached.”

“What is Alizarin Global?”

Doctor Nyland merely smiled. “Good-bye, Mr. Secretary. I wish you a pleasant day, wherever your journey leads you.”

And then he was left alone for precisely six minutes. He timed it on his watch, which hadn’t been taken from him. Using his time alone productively he went through his pockets and determined that, apart from his car keys, his possessions were present and accounted for.

At the six-minute mark the door opened and a young, pleasant-faced man entered the room. He was dressed in a dapper business suit, and he smelled vaguely of a cologne nearly as expensive as the clothes he wore. Clipped to the breast pocket of his jacket was a small laminated tag in the shape of a hexagon. It was orange, or perhaps a warm red. It bore no type or name; it must be, Paull intuited, Alizarin Global’s logo.

“Good morning, Mr. Secretary,” he said briskly, with the same slick smile that had animated Dr. Nyland’s face. He clipped an identical logo tag to Paull’s jacket. “I imagine you’re hungry.” Stepping back, he gestured to the open doorway. “There’s coffee waiting, and freshly baked croissants with homemade strawberry jam. I understand strawberry is your favorite.”

Without comment Paull followed him out into a hallway with hunter green walls, brass light sconces, and paintings of famous sailing ships of the 1900s. The man approached double pocket doors made of carved ebony, which he slid soundlessly open. He stood on the threshold, indicating that Paull should enter. As soon as Paull did, he slid the doors shut.

Paull found himself in an old-fashioned drawing room, complete with a marble fireplace, a baby grand piano, a pair of oversized chesterfield sofas, a wet bar along one wall opposite another filled floor to ceiling with books. An enormous bay window overlooked a pond elegantly spanned by a Japanese-style bridge. A brass ship’s clock, crouched atop the mantel, chimed the time.

Two men sat in facing Queen Anne chairs, between which was a coffee table laden with a chased silver coffee service for three. To one side stood a hotel-style server’s cart. The moment Paull walked in the two men rose as one. He recognized them immediately: Miles Benson, former director of the CIA, and Morgan Thomson, the national security advisor during the previous administration. Benson was one of those leather-necked battle vets for whom posters were invented. His face, though dented and deeply scored, was the more powerful and commanding for its battered mien. He had high cheekbones and a fierce Clint Eastwood squint. His manner was no-nonsense, even his glance was brusque, and yet Paull was willing to bet that he saw everything. Thomson was slender, ferret-faced, with a long, sharp-edged nose and hooded rodent eyes that looked out on the world with inveterate suspicion. He was virtually lipless, the better to show bright, white teeth, which were as sharp as his erudite tongue. His intellectual prowess was legendary in neocon circles, and even beyond, which made him the quintessential pundit on talking-head TV.

These two seemingly had nothing in common, and yet during the two terms in which they had been in power they had forged an unshakable alliance on which, until near the end, the former president had relied. These two had shaped his policy and were responsible for the shambles of his legacy. Unrepentant and every bit as arrogant as the day they had assumed their respective posts, they refused to believe that any decision they had made was wrong or misguided. The world, in other words, was their world, reality to the contrary. Complete control had been their aim as well as their hubris, because nothing so grandiose could be controlled by two men, a hundred, or even a hundred thousand.

All of this recent history flashed through Paull’s mind in the three seconds it took for the two men—Edward Carson’s archenemies, who plotted his destruction—to reach him and, with smiles a millimeter thin, pump his hand.

A moment later, Paull said, “Your behavior is outrageous, bordering on the criminal. I’ll have my car keys now.”

“Of course,” Benson said, dropping them into his palm.

Without another word Paull turned to go. He was almost at the door when Thomson said in the plummy tones of his television voice, “Of course you’re free to leave, Mr. Secretary, but it will be a pity if you don’t get to see your daughter and grandson.”

Paull stood frozen for the space of several thunderous heartbeats, after which he was compelled to turn back to face them. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your daughter, Claire, is in the room across the hall. Your grandson is with her.”

Paull was virtually stupefied. “Why are they here?”

Thomson had clearly taken point. “They came to see you.”

“Don’t make me laugh. My daughter hasn’t wanted to see me since before my grandson was born.”

“She does now,” Thomson assured him. “We told her that you were terminal.”

“You people are insane.” Turning away, Paull put his hands on the grips of the sliding doors and began to push the doors apart.

“Aaron,” Thomson said in his richest tone. “Your grandson’s name is Aaron.”

Paull, filled with conflicting emotions, whirled on his tormenters. “None of this will mean a damn to me when you’re taken into custody. Kidnapping a member of the United States government is a federal offense punishable by—”

“No one’s being arrested,” Benson said sharply. “No one’s going to jail.”

“He can’t help himself, the military has marked him for life.” Thomson said this in an equable, almost a kindly manner. He raised a hand. “Why don’t we all sit down. Aren’t you even the least bit curious as to why we want to talk with you?”

Turning, Thomson sat down on one of the chesterfields and poured coffee into the three cups. “I don’t know about you, Mr. Secretary, but I’m famished.” He looked up expectantly. “Is your opinion of us so set in stone that you won’t give us a chance to explain the . . . unorthodox method by which you were brought here?”

“Unorthodox?” Paull echoed.

Thomson shot Benson a significant look. In response the ex-military man cleared his throat before saying, “I apologize for the extreme methodology that brought you here.” He crossed to the chesterfield, accepting the cup Thomson offered. “However—and here I think you’ll agree—I seriously doubt that we could have induced you to come here any other way.”

Thomson nodded at his compatriot’s conciliatory tone. Taking up another cup, he lifted it as a token offering to Paull. “Please believe us, Mr. Secretary, you’re a guest here. An honored guest.”

Paull, his best dubious face forward, slowly settled himself on the chesterfield across from the two men. He put three sugars in his coffee, a dollop of half-and-half, and stirred with a tiny spoon. While he did this Benson opened the warming cart and produced plates of croissants, eggs, bacon, and small, precise triangles of buttered toast. All very civilized, Paull thought, as he sipped his coffee, which was strong and rich, much better than the swill he would have bought at McDonald’s or Denny’s.

“If I may,” Thomson said, “your mistake was in hacking into General Brandt’s bank account. We monitor it twenty-four-seven.”

“But, as it happens,” Benson said, “your mistake was our good fortune, and I’ll tell you why.” He added Tabasco sauce to his eggs, took a bite, and nodded appreciatively before setting down his fork as if he were already full. “Brandt is our man on the inside.”

“Brandt isn’t a member of the cabinet,” Paull said.

“He’s in an even better position, he’s an advisor who has Carson’s ear, especially on all matters Russian.” He shrugged. “Given what you’ve been up to the last several days I don’t suppose that comes as much of a shock to you. However, we’ve become increasingly concerned with the General.” He pursed his lips, as if he’d just bitten down on something acrid. “You remember Colonel Kurtz, I imagine.”

“Heart of Darkness,” Paull said. “Joseph Conrad, a great book.”

“Thank God your frame of reference isn’t Apocalypse Now,” Thomson said. “Coppola made a mockery of that masterpiece.”

“Back to Kurtz,” Paull said. “Are you trying to say that General Brandt is insane?”

“Well, if not,” Benson said sourly, “he’s certainly in his own private heart of darkness.”

For the first time Thomson looked disconcerted. He lifted a hand and scratched his eyebrow with the back of his thumb, a gesture that eerily mimicked the intelligence officer played by G. D. Spradlin, who briefs Captain Willard on his assignment to terminate Kurtz in a memorable scene near the beginning of the film.

Benson, who Paull could tell wasn’t prepared to deliver what he intuited as bad news, cleared his throat again. “In point of fact, and despite what my esteemed colleague said, the allusion to Apocalypse Now isn’t unwarranted.” He paused for a moment as if unsure how to proceed. “You do know that the character of Kurtz was based on the much decorated Green Beret, Colonel Robert Rheault?”

“During the war in Vietnam,” Paull said, digging back in his memory. “Wasn’t Rheault relieved of his command?”

“That’s right,” Benson said, sitting ramrod straight. “He was accused of murder.”

A small but terrible finger of ice seemed to pierce Paull’s gut. “What does that have to do with General Brandt?”

Thomson, sitting stonily beside Benson, was positively white-faced.

Benson briefly glanced at him before he said heavily, “General Brandt has issued an immediate sanction on Jack McClure.”

Paull knew this, of course, but he saw no advantage in letting them know it. In fact, quite the contrary. He was now sure that he had more information about Brandt’s latest activities than they did, which meant that, like Kurtz, like Rheault, Brandt had lost touch with his superiors, or at least his coconspirators. As Benson had said, the General was now in his own private heart of darkness. What this meant for all of them he had no idea, but much to his own consternation, he became aware of a subtle shift in how he perceived these two men. Not that enemies had suddenly, recklessly morphed into friends, but the polar opposites of black and white seemed to be breaking down into shades of gray.

At length, he said, “How the devil does General Brandt think he can order a sanction?”

“That,” Thomson said, at last unthawing, “is what we’ve brought you here to discuss.”

EVER VIGILANT when it came to Alli, Jack saw a blurred shadow out of the corner of his eye and knew it was her. He turned away from Kharkishvili to see Alli racing across the rocky headland toward the cliff’s edge. Without a second’s thought he broke away and ran, calculating vectors as he did so, in order to ensure he would intercept her before she . . . did what? Was she going to hurl herself off the cliff? Was she suicidal? Had she exhibited any warning signs that he might have missed when he was paying attention to Annika?

The dogs, barking hysterically, followed him, loping uneasily, as if they had picked up on his mounting anxiety. She was still running full tilt toward the cliff’s edge when he caught up with her. Her headlong momentum pulled him along for a pace or two, which brought both of them perilously close to the steep drop-off. The dogs growled, their haunches quivering, the hair at the back of their necks ruffled, until he had dragged her back from the brink.

They fell to the rocky ground, and the dogs moved in, licking their faces until Kharkishvili called them off, and the wolfhounds scampered back to where he was standing some distance away.

“Alli,” Jack said, out of breath from both his sprint and the fright she had given him, “what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Get off me!” She shoved him. “Get away from me!”

She was crying hysterically, and probably had been, judging by her tear-streaked cheeks, for some time.

“What happened?” he said, alarmed. “What’s gotten into you?”

She turned her head away, into the grass, her body wracked by sobs.

“Alli, talk to me.” Annika had said that Alli wanted to tell him what Morgan Herr did to her, that her need to tell someone about her week of terror would eventually override her reticence. “You can tell me anything, you know that, don’t you?”

She struck him then, just a glancing blow to the side of his head, but he was shocked enough to lose his grip on her, and she scrambled away, first on all fours, like a wounded animal, and then, regaining her feet, making another jagged, confused run for the edge of the cliff.

Jack sprinted after her and, scooping her up, ran back in the direction of the manor house, but he stumbled over an outcropping of rock and had to put her down. For some reason he wasn’t seeing clearly, and when he raised a hand to his eyes it came away wet with tears. He sat on the grass, panting and crying, while all three wolfhounds circled the two of them protectively as he had seen them do with Kharkishvili.

To his credit the Russian kept his distance. He had turned toward the mansion, where, Jack saw, Annika had emerged. Taking in the scene, she began to run toward him. Long before she got there Kharkishvili intercepted her, turning her away so that Jack and Alli could remain alone.

Jack felt the sea wind in his hair and on his cheeks. It was soft and moist with salt and phosphorus. The clouds overhead seemed unable to stir, as if some great hand had pinned them in place. He tried to listen for the crash of the waves, but he heard nothing. It was as if the world were holding its breath.

“Alli,” he said softly, but made no move to touch her, or even to move nearer, “you don’t want to kill yourself, I know you don’t.”

Trembling and shivering, she stared at him, red-eyed, and shouted, “I’ve had fucking enough of people climbing inside my head, telling me what to do!”

“Alli, please tell me—”

“I can’t, I can’t!” she cried. Her hands curled into fists, and then they began to beat against his chest, as if he were the physical manifestation of the terror that gripped her.

In the face of her mounting hysteria he knew he had to remain calm. He didn’t stop her attack, but he didn’t withdraw from it, either. “Why can’t you?”

“Because . . .”

She seemed to want to hurt him, and perhaps through him, herself.

“Because—” Her voice was so thin and cracked he had to pull her close to hear her. “—you’ll hate me, you’ll hate me forever.”

“Where did you get that idea? Why would I hate you?”

“Because I lied to you.” A dreadful fear seemed to come over her. “I lied, I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

He closed his arms around her and said in her ear, “I could never hate you. I love you unconditionally.” Kissing her on her cheek, he said, “But I think you ought to tell me whatever it is that’s causing you so much pain. It isn’t healthy to sit with it.”

She snorted in tearful derision. “You say you love me, but that’ll all change the moment I tell you.”

“Do it then.” He held her at arm’s length so he could look her in the eyes. Her fists had uncurled, the fingers trembling against his chest. “Let me decide instead of you deciding for me. Trust me. Trust us.”

The light had gone out in her eyes, she stared at him as if without recognition, and he pulled her to him again, murmuring to her: “Don’t go away, Alli. Stay here with me, you’re safe, you’re safe,” just as he had when he’d rescued her from the black place where Morgan Herr had taken her.

Her head lay heavily against his chest, she seemed to be scarcely breathing.

“Alli, please, I won’t hate you, no matter what, I promise.”

He felt her sigh against him, a long exhalation that was as much resignation as it was a surrender. Her entire body seemed limp and frail, as if she needed to give up everything, even her physical presence, in order to make the terrifying leap he asked of her.

“I . . . I lied to you about what happened the morning Emma was killed.”

“What?” He had expected some terrible revelation about what Morgan Herr had done to her, not this.

“I knew it.” She squirmed in his arms, trying to pull away. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve opened my big mouth.”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “Go on. What happened that morning?”

Her voice was muffled, as if she were talking into him rather than to him, as if she wanted to speak to something inside him with which she desperately needed to connect. “I . . . When you asked me I told you that I wasn’t around, that I didn’t know what Emma was up to.”

“You told me in retrospect you thought she was going to see Herr.”

“That was the lie. I knew where she was going because she told me.” Alli’s voice was further clouded by guilt and despair. “I was there. She asked me to drive her, she said she’d been up all night and was in no shape to drive.” She was weeping again as she clung to him. “I told her I couldn’t, I gave a totally bogus excuse because I was scared, I didn’t want to get involved. And because I was so chicken-shit, she died. If I’d been driving nothing bad would have happened, she’d be alive now.”