nine
She knew what the smell was—there was no longer any way to avoid that knowledge. She’d smelled it before, too many times. In her boss Peter Wallace’s office, kneeling over his body. In a Swiss chalet with a dead man and a thousand gerbils at her feet. In her sister Kate’s bathroom. It was the stench of blood and death, a smell like no other, and she felt the nausea begin to rise.
She swallowed the bile, shook off the tremors that threatened to overcome her, and met Randall’s distant expression. “Who did we kill?” She hadn’t fired her gun, but for some reason she didn’t want him to take the responsibility alone.
The gesture was in vain. “We didn’t kill anyone. Flynn leaves no witnesses, remember?”
“I remember.” She didn’t need to ask him how he knew there were bodies. He knew just as she did. “What are we going to do with them?”
Randall shrugged. “See if they’re all dead. See if Flynn left any clues behind.”
“Can we bury them?”
“Not likely. The ground’s too hard, and I can see at least three bodies. It would take hours to dig a hole large enough.” He stopped. “You sure you don’t want to wait in the car?”
“I’m sure.”
“That’s right. You don’t need anyone or anything. This must seem like a piece of cake to a hard-nosed woman like you.”
“Not exactly. Don’t goad me, Randall. I’m just trying to help.”
He looked at her for a long, silent moment. “All right,” he said finally. “You see if there’s anyone in the tent. I’ll take care of the ones out here.”
The tent hadn’t collapsed completely. As Maggie moved quietly through the camp she tried to breathe through her mouth, to calm the screaming nerves that threatened to overtake her. There was blood seeping through the tent where it lay on the ground. Maggie cast a surreptitious glance back at Randall. He was bent over one of those huddled shapes, his back to her, and another shiver swept over her. Her throat had closed up, and all her swallowing couldn’t seem to open it again. Steeling herself, she lifted the flap of the tent and stepped inside the sagging structure.
She didn’t need to examine the figure on the ground to know he was well and truly dead. Nor did she really need to move closer to the woman lying on the narrow cot. But something drove her, as she pushed the sagging tent away and crossed the narrow space.
The woman must
have been in her early twenties. She had the dark auburn hair and clear white skin of the Irish, and the staring eyes were a true green, rather like Ian’s. The other man had been butchered, swiftly, efficiently, as no doubt the bodies in the compound had. But Flynn had taken his time with this one. And Maggie remembered her mother, lying small and huddled in a hospital bed, and she began to shake.
She didn’t even hear Randall move in behind her. “Do you think that’s Maeve O’Connor?”
Maggie shook her head, trying to clear the blinding tears from her eyes. “I don’t know. Do you want me to see … ?”
“I want you to go outside and get in the Bronco,” he said, putting firm hands on her shoulders and turning her away. “Walk on the left side of the clearing and watch the bushes. You never know when you’ll see another goat.”
“Randall.”
“Go.” He gave her a push, and his hands were rough, reassuringly so. “I’ll meet you in the car.”
Maggie drew in deep lungsful of the tainted air, forcing her body to calm down, forcing her hands to relax around the Uzi she was still clutching. She kept her face averted from the neatly piled bundles of what had once been living, breathing human beings and headed toward the waiting Bronco, cursing herself for being a weak-willed coward.
Randall was wrong. There were no goats wandering around, no trace of life anywhere near the compound. Death was thick in the air, and any creature with any sense had run as far away as it could. Which is exactly what Maggie wanted to do.
The once-hated Bronco was a haven. The warm Lebanese air had turned cold and ugly, and she climbed in, closing the door and rolling up the windows, huddling down in the plastic-covered seat and wrapping her arms around her. She couldn’t even bring herself to rummage for something warmer in the suitcase she’d tossed in the back. She just sat there, her mind and memory a merciful blank, and waited for Randall.
Time had lost its meaning. It could have been hours later when Randall finally slid into the driver’s seat, it could have been merely minutes. It was fully dark; the moon hadn’t risen yet but for once Maggie didn’t mind the dark. Too much lay hidden by the shadows, too much real horror overwhelmed the mere possibility of death and darkness.
“Where are we going?” To her amazement her voice came out even and calm, with none of the inner torment evident.
He’d started the Bronco, and the noisy engine filled the silence. Moments later they were moving away from the encampment. “We’re going to find someplace to spend the rest of the night,” he said finally, not turning to look at her. “And then we’re going to drive straight to Damascus and get the first plane to Rome.”
“And then what?”
“That’ll depend whether Flynn’s gone to Italy or someplace else, and whether he’s continued to leave the too-convenient trail that he’s left so far. It could come to a dead end.”
“And then what do we do?”