Ava looked at him, at his eyes, his disposition. Looked into him. Was he lying? It was impossible to tell. People like him lied so often they gave no thought to whether their words were true or false. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
“You didn’t really think we’d stop with you,” said Tariq. “Not when we’ve come this far.”
“Then why?”
“Leverage,” said Tariq. “In case you decide not to cooperate.”
Ava walked to the window. She’d tried to leave word for Mac to leave, but since when was he someone to take advice? She thought of Katya and for a moment was overwhelmed. No, she didn’t believe it. Tariq was lying. She’d sent a message this morning to let Mac know that she was alive. Bad tradecraft, but still.
“I’ll never cooperate,” said Ava.
“Famous last words,” said Tariq. “So, I must ask you. Who else have you told?”
Part II
Chapter 30
March—seven months earlier
Institut Alpinuum für Sport, Physiotherapie, und Zellleistung
St. Moritz, Switzerland
The Alpine Institute for Sports, Physical Therapy, and Cellular Performance occupied a modern three-story building set high on the steep hillside that was home to the village of St. Moritz, in the eastern Swiss canton of Grisons. From its windows, clients had a breathtaking view over the village and the entire Engadin Valley. They saw the famous wainscoted tower of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel and next door, Confiserie Hanselmann; the sweeping lake on the valley floor; and the polo fields bordering it. But most of all they saw the mountains. The Piz Nair and the Piz Corvatsch and the Corviglia, towering sentinels gathered all around, slopes blanketed by newly fallen snow.
It was a bluebird day, in the parlance of the ski bums and tourists who flocked to St. Moritz during the winter. Not a cloud in the sky, the sun impossibly bright, the sky vividly blue. But Ava Attal, her T-shirt drenched with sweat, lungs fighting for breath, couldn’t give a fig for the view. She was in pain. And she wanted it to stop.
“One more rep,” commanded her trainer. “You’re almost there.”
“You’ve been saying that for an hour,” said Ava, as she raised the fifteen-pound dumbbells to shoulder height.
“Hold it,” said the trainer. “Three-two-one. There!”
Ava lowered the weights to her side. “Another?”
The trainer shook her head. “You’re done,” she said, taking the weights. “You killed it.”
“I think you killed me.” Ava sat on a bench and toweled the sweat from her eyes. Week twelve completed. Not bad, young lady. She raised her right arm. For the first time since her surgery, there was no strain, no discomfort. She shouted with joy. Everyone in the gym looked her way. She waved to them unabashedly. “I’m getting better!”
A few clapped. Others rolled their eyes. Ava didn’t mind. Five months earlier she’d been given up for dead. Anything was an improvement.
The trainer returned and told her Dr. Lutz wanted to see her in his office. “Right away, Frau Attal.”
Ava threw the towel around her neck and took the elevator to the first floor. The door to Dr. Gerhard Lutz’s office stood open. A tall, rangy man with shaggy gray hair and furious black eyebrows ushered her inside.
“We need to talk,” said Lutz.
“Is something wrong?” asked Ava. “Has there been a setback?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” said Lutz. “You’re doing just fine. Your shoulder is healing faster than expected. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Ava regarded her doctor. He was a serious man, seventy years old, fit as an athlete in his prime. He wore a white lab coat over a plaid button-down shirt, as well as jeans and climbing boots. Gerhard Lutz was a renowned orthopedic surgeon and pioneer in the use of stem cells to aid recovery. Five months earlier he had operated on Ava’s shoulder and upper arm, reattaching the pectoralis muscle to the humerus.
She had not injured herself playing a sport or taking a nasty fall on the ski slopes. Her injuries were inflicted by a bullet, a 5.56 mm full-metal-jacket round fired from a Heckler & Koch machine gun. The bullet had entered her upper-right torso two inches below the collarbone and exited her back four inches lower, shattering a rib andshredding muscle and flesh. The exit wound was the circumference of a baseball. Miraculously, the bullet had missed all major organs.
Lutz closed the door and locked it.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
