Markov squirmed. So—Cherkassky had it thought out to the last lie and wriggle, was going to save them from the FBI. He should have been glad but he was desolate. Spite had carried him the insane way around to the side of justice. He said, "But—"
"The things they care about," Cherkassky implacably went on, "these things they will never find. The deaths? No witnesses to deaths. Our true business? Break down your lab, Gennady, the instant you get home. Equipment, throw it in the ocean, the tide carries it away. The pyramid—they will never know to look inside the pyramid."
Abramowitz smiled.
Markov rocked on the sofa. His thick lips flubbered as he sought for more objections to puncture his old friend's plan, tried to persuade himself that the skinny bastard would not win. He thought and his fingers fidgeted between the cushions of the sofa. They came up against something hard and cool, and he plucked it out.
It was a hearing aid. He held it in the air, stared at it a moment Then he smiled snidely at Cherkassky. If he couldn't top his old comrade at tactics, he might at least annoy his vanity. He said, "Your ears are going bad, Ivan? Ashamed to wear your hearing aid?"
Cherkassky said nothing, just squinted at the small device.
"Must be the old man's," said Abramowitz. "He mutters something he lost it"
The muscular young man held his hand out and Markov passed the hearing aid to him. He crushed it in his fist. It made a high-pitched whistle then faded into silence like a dying bird.
Abramowitz cackled. "He doesn't need it anymore. Now I'll go to get his friend."
Chapter 49
Aaron had dreamed of his father.
In the dream, Sam was dead and then he wasn't. Nonchalantly, he came back after what seemed to be a long, long absence. He was young when he came back. His hair was dark and wavy; his step had bounce in it, momentum, as a step must have when proceeding toward a future. It was wonderful to see him in the prime of life, but at some point Aaron knew the dream was fooling him. The man with the dark hair and the purpose in his stride was not his father but himself. His father's absence was the future he could not deflect himself from striding toward. So be it. Resignation made a secret progress in the damp dark of sleep, and lost ground again in the unyielding hopefulness of daytime.
He smelled salt air and coffee, realized that his cheek was pressed against Suki's shoulder, and jolted himself awake. His swimming eyes saw the wall of newsprint that was propped against her knees. He said, "What time is it? How long did I sleep?"
She kissed him on the forehead, said, "You were exhausted."
Impatient, he wrestled with the sheet. He had no idea what he needed to be ready for, yet he couldn't bear to be unready. "But—"
She stroked his hair. "There's nothing to be done right now," she said. "Have a little coffee."
He drank from her cup and she gestured toward the paper. "You know, he's really a good journalist."
Aaron grunted, got his eyes to focus. "But it's a made-up story."
Suki said, "Made-up stories change lives too."
For that Aaron had no answer. But he stopped fighting against the bedclothes, settled back against her shoulder.
"Cops'll be here soon," she said.
"Wish I had more faith in them." His knees and ankles twitched. There was more he should be doing and there was nothing to be done.
"That would be a comfort," Suki said. She said it blithely, but then her breathing changed. A hitch came into it, it was like a whimper but without the sound. "Aaron," she said, "whatever happens today—"
She broke off, swallowed, tried again to speak but couldn't
Aaron came up on an elbow, looked down at her rare blue eyes, the joyful mouth with its disconcerting upper lip. Her face had shown him moxie and humor and passion and caring, and now for the first and only time, it let him see just how afraid she was.
Her face unmasked the fear in him as well. "Whatever happens," he echoed, and took her in his arms.
In the rented tile house, Bert the Shirt had already been awake for what felt like half a day.
He'd heard amorous doves cooing in the dark and woodpeckers probing the soft bark of dead and headless palms. He'd stood at a window to watch the sky lose its blackness and lift off from the horizon. He'd showered, put on a chartreuse shirt with a forest green monogram, and made his oatmeal, all the while wallowing in remorse.
He'd failed Sam, and Sam was suddenly his dearest friend, practically his brother. That's what happened in old age. The lusts and ambitions that made men separate fell away, and they regained the easy fraternity of childhood, when anyone could eat at anybody's table, join in anybody's game. And where it was the unquestioned role of the stronger to look out for the weaker. That was Bert's responsibility, to look out for doddering, slipping Sam, and he'd blown it.