The Sixth Station(87)
“Very funny. Who planted the car bomb, then?”
“I did. As well as a corpse in a suitcase.”
“A corpse.”
“They need to think you’re dead.”
“Who besides you? Perhaps you have me confused with a fool or, worse, an amateur.”
“Yes, yes, I know all about it. Iraq. Car bomb. Your husband. 2005.”
“Go on.”
“You were set up in the murder of Father Sadowski. Fine, fearless warrior, that. Damned shame what they did to him. But he got sloppy, let it happen.”
“Wow. Cold.”
“You, on the other hand, had to be eliminated, at least as far as our enemies are concerned—and I had to take the heat off you.”
“Why? Who am I in the scheme of things? I can’t help it if I got kissed by a terrorist.”
“You, dear girl, were born to it. In more ways than you can imagine. Anyway, I had to make it look like there was a third player in the game.”
“Am I supposed to thank you now?”
“No. Being hunted has a way of taking one’s mind off the mission.”
“I’m still being hunted.”
“Yes.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Did I just say ‘yes’ or not? You were spotted in Turkey. That fool priest.”
Wait a minute! Now I know his voice! The soldier! Turkey!
Just then the waiter brought some sort of fishy-smelling amuse-bouche. I was beginning to feel nauseated.
“No one associates you with that explosion in the parking lot. Well, not anymore,” he said by way of ignoring me.
“Wrong. My friend in New York City connected me with it right away.”
“Believe me. She hasn’t a clue.”
I let it pass. He let my arm go. “Excuse me, but I must release my hold on you. This looks delicious—no?”
Freaking weirdo!
“Were you just there—in the house in Turkey?”
“No.”
“Not true. You were there. I heard your voice.”
“Yes. I was there. Thirty-three years ago. I should have killed the pompous ass when I had the chance. He almost ruined the Experiment then, and now again, he’s endangered the entire mission—bringing you to that house.”
“So you were there!”
“Thirty-three years ago.”
“Explain how I saw you there just yesterday, for God’s sake.”
“How would I know?”
I told him some of what I’d seen and heard.
He studied my face without expression. I couldn’t help but notice that through it all, he, unlike Donald and most of the reporters and prosecutors I’d dated, had impeccable table manners.
For a professional assassin.
“So? You’re saying it wasn’t you? I heard you and saw you—in shadow, yes—but I saw you!”
“The hologram.”
“No—the priest said he didn’t get to show it because I’d passed out.”
He eyed me closely before saying, “I suspect then that what you saw was a sort of vision: You were able to alter the time/space continuum.”
“What are you, a physicist?”
“Yes. MIT.”
“Oh, puleeze. You decided that being a professional killer paid better?”
“Let’s get back to your vision. You realize that you relived exactly what happened in that house so many years ago?”
I gulped down another glass of wine.
“If this doesn’t convince you of your place in the scheme of things—”
“I have no place in your—or their—scheme of things.”
“You do. Just as it was mine to guard the Son of the Son, Demiel, and His Mother for all those years.”
“You mean the child you molested and took as a, a wife? A little twelve-year-old child!” I was nearly spitting.
“She was thirteen, and I assure you there was no molestation involved. But there was a marriage much later on. Again, destiny fulfilled.”
“You realize you are a monster?”
“I realize that I am a man with a destiny that can’t be changed: I was born to fulfill this part of the Experiment. I have lived my destiny every day of my life—but you have just started to live yours.”
“What happened to that girl? The judge said ben Yusef’s mother was dead.”
“No.”
“Just no?”
“Yes. Just no.”
I changed the subject. “The ‘experiment.’ What does that mean? I heard it from Father Jacobi.”
Every time I mentioned the priest’s name, his face would go blank with disgust.
“So you won’t be inviting him to your next birthday party.”
“Let’s just say having lived with him during the girl’s confinement, he’s not my idea of a man—or, more importantly, a man of God.”