The Whole Truth (A. Shaw 1)

“Then you should understand that I’ve done my duty.”

Frank said slowly, “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to my people about that. Maybe I could bring myself to cutting you loose, but I don’t think they’ll be too happy about it.”

Shaw had never been able to go over, around, or through Frank. The burly baldy had stood his ground like a stone wall.

I should have shot him between the eyes.

“I don’t care if they’re happy! Just tell ’ em what I said.”

“In the meantime I need you in Edinburgh and then Germany, Heidelberg. You don’t come through on that you can forget me talking to anybody except your new warden.”

Shaw was silent for a few moments, trying to get his anger under control. “This is the last time, Frank. This is it! You can tell your people whatever the hell you want. Understood?”

“Instructions the usual way. Two days. Enjoy Dublin. And your friend.”

“You really don’t want to go there.”

“Just making an observation.” The line went dead.

“I hate your guts, Frank,” Shaw whispered to the empty air.

CHAPTER 14

SHAW SLIPPED INTO the small bathroom. Most European baths were small; these folks apparently required far less space to relieve and bathe themselves than the rest of the world. He splashed water on his face, looked up and caught his reflection in the mirror.

Rugged is how most would describe his features. Even Anna had called him ruggedly handsome. The bones and skin were in decent shape. The eyes had always been his most distinctive element, though. Not only were they the lightest of blues that eyes could generate without artificial aids, they didn’t go with the rest of his coloring. His skin was swarthy, more Italian or Greek than Irish or Scottish, and his hair was dark and wavy, often with a mind of its own. Fetchingly rumpled, Anna had once described it. Yet when Shaw looked at himself all he saw was a haunted man with scars that ran far too deep to endure.

As though she had sensed her presence in his thoughts, Anna appeared behind him, wrapping her long arms around his bare and brawny shoulders.

She was wearing his T-shirt. On Shaw, the breadth and cut of his delts and chest made the shirt a tight fit. Yet even on the tall Anna, it was more like a dress.

“Trouble sleeping?” she asked.

“Rain. Don’t like rain at night.”

“I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

Shaw stared at her in the mirror’s surface as her fingers traced a small scar near his throat. It was a little souvenir from a visit to the Ukraine. He’d told her it was from falling off a bike. Actually it was from a knife thrown by an ex-KGB agent whose only qualification for the job was that he was a homicidal maniac. It’d missed Shaw’s jugular by about two centimeters. Still, he’d come pretty damn near bleeding to death in a place that would have made the chop shop in Turkey he’d dumped Frank at look like Johns Hopkins.

He had another scar on his right side that he’d never explained to her for a simple reason: he wanted to forget it was even there, because every time he did think of it, he felt shame. Branded. Like a horse. No, like a slave. In fact, that was the other reason he was in Dublin, to do something about that little present.

She said again, “Were you talking to someone?”

Frank, scars, and the KGB butcher passed from his mind. What Shaw was really wondering was whether Anna was now having second thoughts. His proposal had been followed with a tearful “yes” from her that he could barely hear. And then the bride-to-be’s enthusiasm and excitement ratcheting up, she’d accepted his marriage proposal in nine other languages, her tears leaching onto his skin, finally bringing Shaw the man as close as he’d ever come to crying.

But something in her tone now was signaling a message other than happiness. It really was time, he thought.

He splashed water on his face, licked some off his fingers, and turned to face her.

“I’m not really a business consultant specializing in international mergers and acquisitions,” he said.

“I know that.”

“What?” he said sharply.

“I know many business consultants. They rarely can beat unconscious two armed men. They rarely have knife scars on their bodies. And they almost always want to show off their wealth. I’ve never even seen where you live. We always stay at my London flat.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?”