“We? Who is we?”

“Don’t be a fool. Don’t ask what you know won’t be answered.”

Our voices had risen. The driver straightened up and I got a glint of metal as he half drew his pistol. Behind me, Ed would be sighting his rifle. 

Davis waved the driver back. His lips were pulled back from his teeth and his eyes were wild. He made quick, chopping gestures with his hands and hissed, “Fuck it! You want Cabral’s daughter – you’ve got her. She never was anything to me, but my goddamned Susyn tried to get cute and clever and made a bad thing worse. Next time she calls, I’ll bring her home. That’s all I can do.”

“If you call off your dogs, and if Raven comes out of it safely, we will bury what we have on you. If you can’t get to your daughter quick enough, the deal is off.”

“No! If you use that list, Cabral’s daughter is dead.”

It was the best deal I was going to get. I said, “Done.”

“That’s not all!”

I waited. He moved up so close I could smell his sweat. He said, “You are buying safety for Cabral’s daughter. You have no part in the deal. Go set things up with Cabral. Make it real clear, ’cause you aren’t going to be around for long. I give you three days. Then you’re a dead man.”

*          *          *

Cabral stepped down from the truck as I walked up. His face was drawn with worry as he asked, “No deal?”

“He bought the whole package. He’ll call off his troops when Susyn reports in next time. We bury the evidence and Raven goes free.”

Senator Cabral slowly shook his head. “I saw his face through binoculars, Ian. There was more than that. What about you?”

“That’s my problem.”

Chapter Thirty-six

A phone call and some more of the Senator’s money bought me a ticket on the redeye from San Francisco to Paris, a Eurail pass, and a new wad of traveler’s checks. I picked them up three hours later when I dropped the Pinto off at Joe Dias’, and he gave me a ride to the airport.

My backpack was at the embassy, and a call to Marseille told me that none of the flyers Colin McAdam and his friends had circulated had brought any response. Thirty-one hours and nine time zones after Davis had given my death sentence, I was looking out of the train window at the Loire Valley, heading for L’Orient.

Raven wasn’t there. I wandered around for two days, listening to Breton bagpipe bands, and gave it up.

She wasn’t in Amsterdam, or Delft, or Harlem. She wasn’t in West Berlin. I stood in front of the wall thinking of the hundreds who had died trying to cross it, and wondering how long it would stand.

Only months, in fact, but no one knew that then.

She wasn’t in Prague, or Munich. Riding the train south from Munich toward Innsbruck, I knew that the summer was over. Outside there was a haze of brown among the green grasses, but that wasn’t the real clue. I could read the end of things in the faces of the passengers. Kids, mostly, in late teens and early twenties. In June they had been full of promise, with faces bright and full of wonder. Everything they saw was fresh and new; if it wasn’t Omaha, then it must be wonderful. They were ready to laugh at every banal and ordinary thing.

Now their eyes were weary, glazed, and often drunken. more tomorrow