Tabari waited in the hallway of Hospital St. Joseph’s ICU with his uncle’s retired colleagues while Gage entered the room alone. Even in the semidarkness, the sterility shocked him, offended him. The unforgiving stainless steel. The disposable plastics. The starched sheets. The cool air. The caustic stink of disinfectant. The mechanical clicks and beeps—each of them—all of them—belied not only the broken body of a man who’d tried to do good in an evil world, but the tragedy of a wife’s grief and the distress of a rabbi sitting outside, head in hands, whose God had failed him.
Benaroun’s hands lay folded on his chest. His legs, unmoving. His head turned and his eyes blinked at the sound of Gage setting down a chair close to the bed. Benaroun glanced at the remote to raise the bed and Gage eased him up from a flat to an angled position. Benaroun then raised a forefinger and pointed it toward his feet. Gage leaned over and followed its trajectory.
Benaroun’s big toe moved.
Gage felt his chest fill and moisture come to his eyes. He grabbed Benaroun’s shoulder and squeezed.
“First a toe,” Benaroun whispered, “then someday a foot… and then someday a leg.”
Gage’s eyes closed and the tension of the last twenty-four hours seemed to sigh out of him.
A slight smile met his gaze when he opened them again.
“You shouldn’t worry so much,” Benaroun said, his voice now a little stronger. “Bad for the heart.”
“It was as much guilt as worry,” Gage said.
“You have nothing to feel guilty about.” Benaroun licked his lips. Gage dipped an oral swab in a cup of water and then wet them. “They were after me, not you.”
Gage pulled the airplane registration numbers out of his jacket pocket and held them up for Benaroun to see.
Benaroun nodded.
“They’re owned by a Chinese company,” Gage said. “But I don’t know what that means.”
“I do. The Chinese got mining concessions from the South Africa president—”
“For smuggling out the platinum for him.”
Benaroun nodded. “And gold, manganese, and vanadium. He kept the Russians out and gave it all to China.”
“And no money trail back to him.”
“He plans to leave the platinum in Swiss vaults until the Chinese drive up the price.”
“How did you—”
“The promise of the money was enough and my informant in the”—Benaroun glanced toward the closed door—“in the South African Secret Service. He called me and then sent the numbers.”
“You sure it was the money that persuaded him?”
Benaroun stared past Gage for a few seconds, then looked back and said, “I don’t know.” He yawned and his eyes closed. He shook his head and opened them again. “Maybe patriotism. The last flight in brought Chinese saboteurs to shut down the mines.”
Gage turned at the sound of a light knock on the door. A nurse entered, followed by Tabari.
“I think that’s enough for now,” she said, coming to a stop next to Gage. “There will be time later to catch up with friends.”
Benaroun’s face flushed. “But I need—”
“Rest. You need rest.” She adjusted Benaroun’s pillow, then looked at Gage and asked, “Can you return later?”
Gage rose to his feet and glanced at his watch as though he intended to suggest a time. But he knew that he wouldn’t be coming back. His flight to New York was leaving in two hours.
A siren wailed outside, its blare muted by the double-paned windows and heavy drapes.
When Gage looked back at Benaroun, he found that the exertion of his protest had drained him and he’d fallen asleep.
Gage noticed that he’d been holding his breath. He released it. At least now he wouldn’t have to lie to his friend.