Aphrodite w-3 Page 31

  "What happens at dinner?"

  "You mean, like, do I make you paint my living room or stand on your head for twelve hours? No. It'll be like the old days, that's all. You'll come out to Southampton and sit around with me and Jenny and we'll drink very good wine and-God, I hate this kind of male-bonding crap, but I've missed you." When Justin didn't say anything, just looked suddenly uncomfortable, Chris said, "Yes, Jay, I understand it won't really be like the old days. It can't be. Not with what happened to Alicia. What I mean is, it'll be like the old days…except it'll be new days. Nobody wants you to disappear again."

  Justin shook off his melancholy and nodded. "You drive a tough bargain," he said. "But I guess I can put up with spending a whole night with you." He glanced over at Deena and jabbed his thumb in her direction. "Besides, she's never seen me beat you at pool."

  "I've been practicing," Chris Jordan said. "You're gonna lose your entire salary." The waiter brought over another round of beer. The three clinked glasses and Jordy said, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

  "Actually, there is," Justin told him. "We have to stay out of sight. We need a place to stay until we get our passports."

  "Same old Jay." He drank half his beer in one gulp. "To the old days," he said. "To the new old days." Four days later, they were on the Jordan's company jet flying across the Atlantic.

  Jordy's driver picked them up at 7 p.m. and took them to Teterboro Airport, to the Jet Aviation terminal. There they were led on board a dark blue Gulfstream III with the slogan jordan's: you demand, we supply written across it. The inside had six leather swivel chairs and two built-in sofas. The trim was burl maple, and much of the interior fabric-carpets and sofa coverings-matched the deep blue of the exterior. There were two pilots, who introduced themselves before the plane took off as Dreux and Buddy, and a flight attendant named Katerina who smiled and said she was at their disposal. After serving them coffee, Katerina pointed out the DVD player, the videotape player, the videogame player, and the CD player. She showed them where the wine was kept and said there was lobster, cracked crab, and omelettes whenever they wanted to eat. Justin said that they would probably sleep most of the way but he thanked her profusely. All three crew members made a point of saying that they loved flying for the Jordans, and Justin made a point of saying he'd be sure to pass it along.

  There was no security-no metal detector, no bag search-flying noncommercially. There was a checkpoint a quarter mile before the terminal where a guard asked for passenger ID and the flight number for the plane. After that, the driver stopped the car a few feet from the runway, a Jet Aviation employee appeared, took their luggage, and put it on the plane, and as soon as the two passengers were ready and comfortable the plane took off.

  Deena was asleep soon after the plane left the ground. She hadn't slept much in the four days they'd spent in Jordy's Manhattan apartment, waiting for the ID documents to arrive. She was nervous about the impending trip and had now been apart from her daughter for a long enough time that she was suffering from child withdrawal. Justin had asked her not to call Kendall because of the danger of phone taps. She was missing the little girl and that made her edgy. So did being around him, Justin knew. Over the four days they'd spent shut in the apartment, not wanting to risk being seen wandering the city streets, Deena had been polite and thoughtful and they'd had long, intimate conversations. He learned more about her first marriage, which was brief and never very satisfying. She talked a great deal about Kendall, about being a single parent. She told him about her broken hearts and her insecurities and the fact that she once wanted to be an actress but she didn't have the ego or the confidence. He did yoga with her for two hours each day and he knew he was stronger, already getting into the kind of shape he should be in. They slept in the same bed, but as soon as they got physically close to each other her discomfort was obvious. By nature she was a toucher but she made no move to touch him during this period. He sensed her guilt. And her desire. But he could also sense her fear. She was afraid of him now or, rather, she was afraid of what he was capable of doing. So he never forced the issue. He made sure she understood how much he cared for her and he decided that was all he could do. After that it was up to her.

  On Jordy's plane she sat next to him rather than across from him. Deena didn't like to fly and Justin was glad that he could be beside her, holding her hand, taking care of her in some way. When she began to doze, her head dropped onto his shoulder and her arm wrapped around his chest. For the two hours she slept, he did his best not to move or breathe so she could rest undisturbed.

  When she woke up, her eyes opened slowly. She felt him against her and she smiled. Her hand squeezed his-

  And then she remembered. He could see it on her face and he could feel it in the tension in her hand. She tried not to be too obvious but soon her head was upright and her hand was in her lap. And soon after that she was sitting across from him.

  Justin didn't sleep at all during the overnight flight.

  He knew what was going to happen when he arrived at his destination, knew that the violence of his dream was about to cross over, irreversibly, into real life. He did not want to lose the reality he was in-the luxury of the plane, the peace and silence surrounding him, the softness and the beauty of the woman sitting near him. He wasn't ready to give that up yet. It was going to disappear, all on its own, soon enough.

  At some point in the middle of the night, Justin eased himself out of his leather seat and walked to the small bathroom at the rear of the plane. He splashed some cold water on his face, wiped himself dry with a color-coordinated blue towel. He started to open the door to return to the main cabin, stopped, leaned down to rest his hands on the rounded porcelain sink. Justin forced himself to look in the mirror, let his eyes lock into the eyes that peered back at him from the glass. He knew how much he'd kept frozen inside in the years since Alicia and Lili had died. Knew how much of himself had died with them. But, for the first time in years, he acknowledged how much of himself was still left.

  He reached out, his fingertips grazing across his reflection.

  In the glass he saw the man he'd been and the man he was. He didn't have to see the man he was about to become. He knew. Private jets fly into Luton Airport, slightly north and just west of London and Heathrow. When they landed at Luton it was ten o'clock in the morning. Their bags were removed from the plane as they were greeted by a customs inspector who came on board, asked them a few perfunctory questions, and then welcomed them to England. They took a courtesy van to the airport's Hertz Rent-a-Car and used Justin's new driver's license and credit card-he was, while he was in England, someone named Lee Scheibe; Deena was Virginia Donnaud-to rent a small but surprisingly powerful Ford. It took him about ten minutes to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Deena did her best not to scream or curl up with her eyes shut while he banged into a median divider and made a right turn directly into oncoming traffic. After a lot of horn honking and some serious sweating, he began to get comfortable behind the wheel. Eventually, he found the M25, followed the signs that said to the west and, after stopping for a quick pub lunch of shepherd's pie somewhere outside of Oxford, they found themselves, several hours later, in Devon. He steered the car off the highway and along lovely, idyllic back roads until they came to the small thatched-roof, Brigadoon-like town of Lower Wolford.

  As he drove out of the town, Justin passed several of the landmarks Alfred Newberg had finally told him about and managed to write down: the sign that advertised a home built in the 1630s that was now a cozy B-and-B, a wildlife preserve, an antique store with a sign in the shape of a rocking chair. Eventually, after winding their way onto the desolate and magnificent moors, they came to an ancient and inviting pub. The sign posted out front said that they served the best hot chocolate in the world and also announced that the fire burning in the fireplace had not been allowed to die out since 1846. Justin pulled the car over to the side of the road across the street from the pub. He lo
oked across Dartmoor, to a hilltop perhaps a mile or two away. At the top of the rugged hill was a stone building that Justin knew to be an early-sixteenth-century castle. He also knew that the castle had, over the past thirty years or so, been modernized and refurbished to the cost of tens of millions of dollars. He knew there were state-of-the-art laboratories set up in one wing and the plushest of living quarters, with luxurious amenities befitting a twenty-first-century billionaire, in the others. Justin squinted up at the castle for one more long moment, then stepped out of the car, opened the trunk, and unzipped the small suitcase that Dreux, the pilot, had taken on board and told the customs people belonged to him. Justin reached into the middle of the bag, underneath several shirts, and pulled out his gun. He felt around for a pouch, found it, untied it, and pulled out the bullets he'd stashed there. He loaded the gun and tucked it into the front of his pants. He went around to the passenger side of the car, asked Deena if she wanted a hot chocolate. Even at this time of year, in the middle of the afternoon, it was cold in Dartmoor. The dankness in the air chilled to the bone, although the sun was out and shining. Deena said she wouldn't mind a hot chocolate-it sounded good. So they went in and sat by the historic fireplace, and while Deena talked about the beautiful countryside and the charming barroom, Justin Westwood thought about the castle on the hill and how that was where he expected to find Douglas Kransten and what he was going to have to do when he found him.

  34

  There was no point in being subtle now.

  They had analyzed every possible way of getting into Kransten's English home. It was impossible to anticipate what would be waiting for them inside, but Justin didn't expect overwhelming resistance. Somebody like Kransten would have a bodyguard, maybe two. There'd be no need for more than that here. Exterior security was reasonably lax. Understandably so. The castle's isolation was security in and of itself. It had been built in an era when there were two classes of people-landowners and serfs-and its geographical location was for one reason only: protection. From its position atop the highest point in the area, it was possible to see anyone and anything that was coming within several miles. No surprises were possible. Not from warring armies or lower-class uprisings.

  Certainly not from a midsize rental car with two desperate people inside it.

  So Justin went the no-surprise route.

  They drove up to the top of the hill. Justin didn't know how close he could get; it turned out to be not too close. A high stone wall surrounded the grounds and the only break in that wall was a spiked metal gate that opened into the driveway leading to the house. Climbing over the wall did not seem practical or effective. So Justin pulled up in front of the gate, went to the intercom that was attached to the stone post, and pressed the buzzer. He rang twice and there was no answer, so he just kept his finger on it, pressing down. After thirty seconds or so, a man's voice, with a brittle English accent, spoke through the intercom.

  "Who is this and what do you want?"

  "My wife and I thought this was a museum or something," Justin said in the most crackerlike voice he could assume, "but we can't get in."

  "It's not a museum, it's a private home. Now please stop ringing."

  The man clicked off. Justin immediately put his hand on the button again and kept it there.

  "I told you to stop ringing. Go away," the voice said after several seconds.

  "I'd like to," Justin said, "but now I got a problem. My car's over-heated. Looks like it's ready to blow up. Can we come in to use the phone and call some kind of garage?"

  "No, you cannot."

  "That's not very friendly of you. We're stuck and this place is in the middle of goddamn nowhere."

  "That's not my problem."

  "Well, if we can't come in, could someone bring out a cell phone or something? All I want to do is get someone to fix my car."

  "No. Now, stop bothering us."

  He clicked off again and Justin immediately put his finger on the buzzer. He left it there for several minutes. Then he got the result he wanted. The front door of Kransten's retreat opened and a man stepped out carrying a rifle. As he approached the gate, Justin could see that it was a shotgun.

  "There's no need for guns," Justin said as the man approached. "I'm just trying to get some help, for God's sake."

  The man walked up, stopped maybe two feet from the gate, lifted the shotgun, and pointed it straight at Justin's chest.

  "Get the fuck out of here," he said.

  Justin did his best to look terrified, which was not, in fact, all that difficult. "I'm s-sorry," he stammered. "My car's overheated."

  "Then push the fucking thing," the man said.

  Justin nodded nervously, scurried to the rental car, opened the door, and got behind the wheel. The man stood directly on the other side of the gate, the rifle now pointed at the front of the car. Justin shifted the gear into place, turned to look over his shoulder to check that nothing was behind him as he backed up.

  "You're not in reverse," Deena said. "You're in first."

  "Put your seat belt on," he said as he turned the key in the ignition.

  "This guy's got a rifle pointed at my head and you're worried about an accident?"

  "Put it on," he told her, never turning to face front, "and duck."

  Her eyes widened but she managed to click her seat belt on just as he jammed his foot down on the accelerator and the car sped forward. The bodyguard didn't even get a shot off as Justin slammed the car through the gate. The bodyguard ricocheted off the right fender and he screamed in pain.

  Justin screeched the car to a halt, leaped out, saw the bodyguard on the ground, the man's face contorted in pain, on his hands and knees trying to drag himself over to the shotgun several feet away. Justin beat him to the rifle, picked it up. As the man looked up pleadingly, Justin jabbed the butt down hard into the side of his head and he lay still and silent.

  Justin dragged the man's body into the bushes, shoved him in so he wouldn't be easily visible. He went back to the car, told Deena that she should get behind the wheel and drive out of the grounds. She started to argue but he said, "It's dangerous now. Too dangerous. I want you to take the car, drive about half a mile away, and wait for me. If I don't show up in two hours, go back to Luton. Go to Jordy's plane, tell them to take you home."

  "I'm not going to leave without you, Jay."

  "If I don't meet you in an hour you're not going to have much of a choice 'cause I won't be leaving." She started to shake her head; he could see the stubborn resistance in her eyes and the set frown on her face, so he said, "You can't help me now. You can only hold me back from doing what has to be done. You know that's true. Please. It's almost over, Deena. Let me end it. I brought you with me so I could keep you safe. Let me keep you safe."

  He watched the tip of her tongue snake out to lick her lips. Justin could see that she was torn. Part of her wanted to stay with him, felt she should stay. But she couldn't hide the fear, the desire to escape. Or the fact that she didn't want to see and have to take responsibility for what was about to happen. Her eyes met his and she nodded once, curtly. She lowered her gaze, got behind the wheel, and backed the car into the road. Justin waited until he couldn't hear the car's engine.

  Then he reached into the front of his pants, pulled out his gun, and started toward the house. It was eerily still.

  He reached the thick and ancient front door, pressed down on the cast-iron latch, and the door swung open. Justin wiped the sweat off his right hand onto his jeans, made sure he had a tight grip on the pistol, and stepped into Douglas Kransten's house.

  The foyer had stone floors and exquisitely carved wood paneling. The detailing along the floor and ceiling was elaborate and formal. An enormous grandfather clock stood in the corner to the left. The ticking echoed throughout the room. A circular stairway, also stone and probably ten or twelve feet wide, dominated the space, leading upstairs. Against the curl of the stairway was a massive carved wooden couch. A huge, round candle chan
delier hung down from the ceiling, which was a good thirty feet high. There were doors to the right and left leading to other rooms. The door to the left was shut. The door to the right was ajar. Justin took a cautious step inside. Then another. When he was in the middle of the room he stopped, hesitated, then took one more step in the direction of the closed door.

  He heard the click-a double click really, but he was moving after the first one-and without thinking, without turning, without hesitating, he dove headlong behind the couch. His arms were scraped raw as he slid along the stone floor and his shoulder slammed into the base of the stairway. He heard the roar of the shotgun blast and above him saw the stairway railings explode and splinter. Justin heard the double pump again, rolled away from the couch onto his side, his gun ready to fire. Another blast from the shotgun and this time the wooden couch was blown apart. Justin fired twice at the figure in the open doorway, saw blood spurt from the man's shoulder, and then watched as the man's chest turned red and he dropped the shotgun and fell forward onto the foyer's cold stone floor.

  Slowly, Justin stood into a partial crouch, his gun raised and aimed.

  Nothing.

  There didn't seem to be any movement at all from anywhere within the centuries-old house. He forced his breathing to slow down, waited until he was certain his legs would support his movement, and walked over to the man he'd just killed and picked up the shotgun. The open door led into a plain, nondescript office. Several desks were set up with computers, phones, and faxes. It seemed deserted, not just shut for the day. Justin had the strong sense that no one had worked here for some time. It was too neat. There were no papers on the desktops, and nothing was out of place, not even a pen or pencil. He walked to the door at the far end of the office, leading farther into this wing of the house. The door was also open and it led to a mammoth laboratory. The room was sterile; the desks and tables were steel and aluminum, the chairs were wood or plastic. There were more computers set up and one wall of bookshelves filled with medical and scientific reference books. One wall was nothing but vials and bottles and canisters. Built into a third wall was a deep restaurant-style refrigerator/freezer the size of a walk-in closet. He turned, went back to the foyer, and stepped to the closed door across the room that led to the opposite wing.