And then I snapped.
I remember going to Eric’s villa in disjointed segments: loading a gun, the snap of the cartridge. The cool of the plants in the small garden. The light in the window. His face staring sullenly at the wall, bringing a whiskey to his mouth. The barrel against his temple, his eyes black with fear, my own voice screaming, “Where is she?”
Blood dripping between his fingers.
Another gun, this one pointed at me.
“You’ve lost your fucking mind, mate.”
Sweat dripping from Eric’s temple.
And then descending, down to the beach, the door to the boathouse flinging open with a clatter.
The gray, unlit hollow where the lifeboat should have been.
Blackness. Rage, eating through it in sparkling squares that spread across my field of vision.
A screen, switches flipping, my cold and calculating mind taking over. A soldier’s mind: there is a task, complete it.
Locate Natalia Karkarov.
A red blip, the lifeboat locater blinking on the screen, north of the island. Going nowhere.
Wind speed, current charts, calculations.
Target would not be going anywhere. The soldier’s mind closed as thoughts irrelevant to the mission attempted to crowd in: Where was she going? Why?
The soldier’s mind was steering the boat.
The sailor’s mind was sailing at night, no lights, only radar.
The soldier’s eyes on the red blip of the lifeboat, and only deep beneath many layers of tissue and cold, calculating muscle reflex, was there the tiniest, beating sentiment:
Please, let the red blip contain a live Natalia.
Chapter Twenty
