CARTAGENA
Dawn was slipping steadily over the landscape, ocher-colored light pouring into the room on the second floor of the house. Lying on his back in bed, still fully dressed, Kealey stared out the window, his view limited to the tops of the dark firs that shielded the house from the road. He had been awake for most of the night, unable to sleep. His mind was too occupied with all that had happened. His disconcerting conversation with Javier Machado was weighing heavily on him, as were Marissa Pétain’s startling revelations regarding the death of her older sister. There was a lot of history there, much of it wrapped up in the Agency, and while Kealey had heard the facts, he was worried about each person’s underlying motivations. For Pétain, it seemed pretty straightforward. She wanted revenge for what had happened to her sister in Colombia. Machado’s goals were not nearly as clear, which troubled him deeply. Marissa Pétain’s desire for revenge was something that Kealey could understand. He’d heard it said that revenge didn’t accomplish anything, that in the end, it only made the pain more acute. He didn’t believe that. Revenge was not a pure motivation, but when applied to a specific task or goal, it could provide one with the strength and clarity of mind needed to accomplish almost anything. Kealey knew this was true because he had gone through it himself, and in Pétain, he saw that same kind of focused intensity. She wanted the Colombians, but to get a crack at them, she would have to prove herself.
That was what she was doing now, Kealey suspected: carving a niche for herself in the DO, waiting for the right time and the seniority she would need to initiate another move against the North Valley cartel. Kealey didn’t think she’d have to wait long. Diego Sanchez-Montoya, one of the principal leaders of the NVC, had been a mainstay on the FBI’s most wanted list for years. The Agency would get a lot of mileage out of a successful undercover operation in Colombia, especially if it managed to bring Sanchez-Montoya down. Javier Machado, on the other hand, was completely unreadable. Why was he so intent on keeping his daughter with Kealey? They had never met before, so why the strange degree of trust? And how did he know about Benazir Mengal? The answer to the third question seemed obvious: Pétain had brought her father into the loop the previous day, while Kealey was sleeping. But how did Machado know Mengal? And who was this man in Lahore? Kealey just couldn’t be sure. As troubling as the whole situation was, though, and as much as it deserved his attention, he couldn’t focus on it. He was far more concerned by what had happened in Madrid. More specifically, he was worried about what Naomi had done, as well as the effect it was clearly having on her.
He had wanted to speak to her the night before, after Pétain had gone to bed, but he just couldn’t bring himself to knock on her door. He’d told himself that it was too late, that their conversation would likely dissolve into an argument, which would wake everyone up, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that he didn’t know what to say to her. Before he’d been drawn into the Agency by Jonathan Harper, Kealey had served in the army for eight years. In all that time, he had never killed a noncombatant. He knew that might not be strictly true. He’d fought in Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Gulf, and some of those battles had taken place in heavily populated urban areas. It was possible that one of his rounds might have gone astray, but he didn’t know of a specific incident, and he felt reasonably sure that the rounds he’d fired had hit their intended targets and nothing else. Naomi, on the other hand, knew exactly what she had done; there was just no escaping it. She had killed 6 innocent people in one fell swoop. Not intentionally, of course—in fact, her actions had been purely selfless—but Kealey knew that didn’t make a difference. At least, it wouldn’t make a difference to her. It didn’t help matters that she had killed another innocent person ten months earlier. Kealey didn’t have to remember how hard that had been for her, because he could see it every time he looked at her. She was still trying to come to terms with what she had done, and that had been one person. . . . And now this.
He rolled off the bed, got to his feet, and padded into the adjoining bathroom. He turned on the shower and climbed in without waiting for the water to heat up. Three minutes later he was out and reaching for a towel. He wiped some steam from the mirror and looked at his face, wondering about the beard. He’d been growing it out for months now. It wasn’t exceptionally long, falling a few inches beneath his chin, but it served to conceal his age and the shape of his face. He thought about keeping it, knowing it would help him to blend in when he and Pétain landed in Pakistan. But he wouldn’t be able to pass as a native, anyway, and they still had to get out of Spain. The beard, he realized, would be remembered by witnesses in Madrid, noted on the incident report, and included in the sketches the CNP would have undoubtedly drawn up and distributed to the airports. Better to take it off. Once he’d shaved and rinsed off his face, he went back to the bedroom and dressed, pulling on a pair of dark jeans and a charcoal T-shirt. Stepping into the hall, he paused for a moment, gauging the sounds of the house. It was early yet—just after eight—but he could hear clanking dishes coming from the bottom of the stairs, as well as the sound of running water. Walking down the hall, he paused outside Naomi’s door. That was where the sound was coming from, he decided; she must be in the shower.
He hesitated, thinking about it. Then he tried the handle. The door was locked, but it was a simple lock; he could pick it in twenty seconds. If he wanted to.
Did he want to? He thought back to the look she’d given him at the hotel in Madrid. Back to what he had seen in her eyes. She had been so distracted, but it was more than the post-traumatic stress he knew she was dealing with. The PTSD wasn’t a secret; he’d known about that for a long time, and so had the psychiatrists at Langley. It wasn’t the kind of thing she could hide. What he had seen at the hotel was something else entirely, and he had to know where it was coming from, even though he’d decided to leave her behind. It was just that simple: he had to know.
Having made his decision, he turned to walk back to his room, thinking about what he could use to pop the lock. He had taken two steps when he paused, then turned and went back to the door. His own door had done that the night before, he remembered, sticking when he’d tried to open it. It could have been something as simple as a slightly warped frame, but if it was like that on his, then maybe . . . He was right. Her door came open with a little bump of his shoulder, and he was in. The bathroom door was closed, the sound of running water louder inside the bedroom. She’d removed her clothes before going into the bathroom; her underwear was lying outside the door, along with a plain white blouse and a pair of dark pants. Pétain had picked up the outfit for her en route to Cartagena; Naomi must have changed into it the day before, while he had been sleeping in the next room. Ignoring the small pile, Kealey went round the side of the bed and found what he was looking for: the clothes she’d been wearing in Madrid. The shower was still running as he picked up her jeans. They were stiff with dried sweat, the denim covered with concrete dust and spots of dried blood. He checked the pockets quickly. There was a tube of cherry-flavored ChapStick in the left pocket, along with a few Euro coins and a receipt from a coffee shop. In the right pocket he found a plastic Baggie. He pulled it out and found it empty except for half a tablet. He tipped it out of the Baggie, held it between his thumb and forefinger, and examined it closely. Had it been whole, it would have been about the size of the nail on his little finger. It was white with numbers on one side: a four over a three and what might have been another three. He didn’t recognize it. Feeling a sudden draft, he looked up. Naomi was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, a white towel wrapped around her toothin body. Her jet-black hair was damp, clear drops sparkling on her bare shoulders. The shower was still running behind her.
“I heard a noise,” she said. Her dark green eyes were flashing, and her stance was confrontational; she was ready to fight. “What are you—”
She broke off, seeing the Baggie in his hand. He was caught, but so was she, and he wasn’t about to apologize. Lifting the tablet so she could see it, he said, “What is this? Codeine?”
She folded her arms across her chest, her face working. “That’s none of your business.”
He flared instantly, taking a quick, menacing step forward. “Naomi, you—”
“It’s morphine.” She took a step back and looked away, her mouth tightening. Her eyes were dry, but as Kealey watched, her face changed, her expression shifting from mild anger to complete despair in the blink of an eye. And just like that, it was gone again. It shook him to the core, but the transformation happened so fast, he couldn’t be sure he had seen it at all.
“Where did you get them?” he asked quietly, holding the remains of the last tablet down by his side. “Were they prescribed?”
She nodded slowly without looking at him, but it wasn’t a yes; she was simply considering the question. Wondering if she should lie, maybe. “Why does that matter?”
“It matters, Naomi. If you—”
“No,” she said, her voice barely audible. “They weren’t prescribed. I got them from a friend in Washington. She’s a physician.”
“Some friend.” The anger was still there, but he was trying to think past it, trying to weigh the implications. “Does Harper know?”
She looked up reluctantly, meeting his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“He knows.” Kealey felt his hands curling into fists, the muscles tightening in his arms. It was a completely involuntary reaction; he just couldn’t control the anger rising inside of him. “He fucking knew the whole time, and he sent you, anyway. Tell me I’m wrong.”
She shook her head, but he was right, and they both knew it.
“How bad is it?” He held up the tablet. “How many of these a day?”
“I don’t know. Between ten and fifteen. Sometimes I don’t . . .”
He waited, but she wasn’t going to finish. “What’s the dosage?”
“Twenty milligrams each.”
“So . . . what? Two hundred milligrams a day? Two hundred twentyfive?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She was leaning against the door frame, her railthin arms still crossed over her chest. She was mumbling her responses at the floor. Kealey didn’t know if she was ashamed, embarrassed, or just sorry that she’d been caught. It was probably a combination of all three.
“Naomi . . .” He waited for her to lift her head, but the silence seemed to stretch on forever. “You can’t keep this up.”
She finally looked up, and he saw that the combative attitude was gone. Tears were streaming down her face, running over the pale, jagged scar on her right cheek. She lifted a hand to touch it, then subtly shifted her body to the right, turning the scar away from him. She’d been doing this since the day she was first released from the Agency’s private facility in Loudoun County, Virginia, and it stung him deeply every time. He didn’t think she knew she was doing it, which only made it harder to watch.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” And he really didn’t. He knew how important the Agency was to her, but he couldn’t let her continue in this state. He was tempted to throw the question back at her—What would you do in my shoes, Naomi? —but that would have been too easy. He had been trained to set aside his feelings in order to make hard, fast decisions, and in this case, the decision was already made. What had just transpired only served to reinforce it.
“I’m not going to say anything,” he said quietly, “but you’ve got to fix this. I know you want to work, but if you keep going the way you’re going, it’s going to end badly. You’re going to get yourself or somebody else killed, and if that—”
He didn’t catch his mistake until the words were out of his mouth, but he caught every part of what happened next. Her face crumpled, and her shoulders seemed to jerk forward slightly, as though she’d been punched in the stomach.
“Oh, Christ.” He was instantly contrite. “Naomi, I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t talking about what happened in Madrid. You couldn’t have known it would turn out the way it—”
He was wasting his breath; she had already turned in retreat. The bathroom door closed behind her, with a solid thump, and he heard the lock snap into place. He couldn’t get to her now; she was lost in her own little world, and Kealey knew that he wasn’t welcome. He looked at the pill in his hand, his mind a complete blank. A thought came: he should crush it, destroy it, remove the temptation. Instead, he tossed it onto the bedspread, turned, and left the room.