The 4 Phase Man Part 26

Xi nodded firmly. "There is, Mr. Chairman."

Technically, at least, it was a beach. Really far more rocks than sand, it was an uncomfortable, if breathtaking, tableau to walk on, around, through. With sheer cliffs on one side, the pounding Mediterranean on the other, and the eons-old shining smooth rocks looking back at you in quiet mocking at your turmoil.

Valerie carried her shoes as she picked her way around the obstacles, concentrating as hard as she could on picking a path around the stones. It was the way she'd found-the only way-to escape thinking in general. Thinking, and crying.

She felt cursed, betrayed, abandoned by G.o.d and the devil to roast in a purgatory of her own making. With the ghosts of her children calmly, sadly, looking out at her from every shadow.

So she walked on the rocky beach, and didn't think, for longer each day.

The tide was going out at the end of another of the interminably beautiful days of this place. Another day of warm breezes, sweet scents, and no news.

She knew the negotiations between the Chinese and the Corsicans had begun, but had heard nothing beyond that. a.s.sumed they were going badly, that her children had already been made to pay for the headstrongness of their insane mother; that the Chinese were delaying to cover that fact.

But the head of the Council had urged patience. And since she was a wanted fugitive in her own country, in this one illegally, as powerless as a human being could be to stop the events she saw unspooling on the evening news nightly, she just grit her teeth and walked the beaches.

Her own limbo in paradise.

When not on the beach, Valerie had been keeping mostly to herself. Despite the debt she owed him, she couldn't bring herself to talk to Xenos anymore. He'd refused to involve himself any further-as he'd told her in the midst of the chaos-and she'd been led to believe that this was the primary reason the Corsicans chose to negotiate rather than fight.

She understood him, in her mind-he'd been drawn into this thing unwillingly and accidentally-but these days she was ruled by her heart, not her mind.

And her heart couldn't forgive him.

Avidol had been nice, solicitous, talking to her every day-the weather, her health, small talk meaning nothing-and she understood that he was legitimately concerned for her. But he was an old man from a different time, and she was unwilling to educate him about the kind of man his son was, and the men his son knew that he refused to confront.

The Corsicans were... polite. They saw her, she believed, as an inconvenience. A tool necessary to propel the negotiations for the compensation for Paolo's murder. A club to hold over the Chinese's head. But beyond that, she was simply and purely the instrument that had caused Paolo's death in the first place.

A thing that kept her from looking Franco in the eyes, in the soul, the few times she encountered him.

So she walked.

She looked up from the thin strip of sand, in order to better pick her way around a boulder, suddenly surprised to see someone else on this deserted stretch of ocean's edge.

Franco, staring out at the water, unmoving, silhouetted by the setting sun.

Embarra.s.sed, she quickly looked for a way off the beach, realizing that her only options were to go back the way she had come or to continue on, past the man. She turned around to go.

"Alvarez!"

Valerie winced when she heard her name called out, freezing with indecision as to whether or not to answer or hurry off the beach.

"Alvarez!"

The voice was closer now, coming toward her. Reluctantly she forced up a nonfrown and turned to face the brother of the boy she'd betrayed.

"Franco."

He came up to her, his face an angry blank. "It is dangerous for you to walk alone."

She shrugged. "I need alone."

He seemed to study her closely. "Me also." He turned away from her, again looking out at the water, beyond the water.

"Are the, uh, negotiations going well?" She felt she had to ask.

He raised his eyebrows in an expression of both doubt and I don't really give a d.a.m.n. "Everything with the Cinesi is time. They a.n.a.lyze, dissect, repeat, and probe. Then they ask for clarifications."

"But at least they're talking, right?" Her voice was strained as she longed to be gone, to not be so physically close to the man she'd so soul-wounded.

The man she had so much in common with.

Franco never looked away from the blue water that reflected the reds and oranges of the sunset as if it were on fire.

"We all die."

"What?"

He took a deep breath, exhaled it even more deeply, then pointed out at the water. "Moriamo tutti. It is an old Corsican belief."

Valerie felt sick to her stomach. "I, uh, I promised Dr. Jacmil that I would ..."

"What it means," Franco said, ignoring the clearly distraught woman, "is that death is inevitable. We will all, at length, return to the sea that gave us life. It's comforting somehow. Don't you think?"

A chill raced through Valerie. An unclean hand clenching her soul to the brink of extinction. Slowly, almost against her will, she moved closer to the Corsican strongman.

"You've heard something. A statement," not a question. "My children..."

Franco shook his head. "No." I've heard nothing. He laughed bitterly. "But then it doesn't matter, does it?"

Valerie had looked down, saying a private prayer of thanks, but she snapped her head up at that. "What! What did you say?"

Franco just looked at her blankly.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she whispered. "You unfeeling sonofab.i.t.c.h!" Her anger found its voice and exploded over the man. "It amuses you to play head games with me? To tell me that it doesn't matter if my babies are dead! That it's inevitable?"

She reached up and slapped his expressionless face. "Boca de gusano! We all die? You heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.d, what the h.e.l.l do you know about it?"

She swung on him again. This time he easily caught her blow, then the one from the other hand. She began to struggle, spitting at him, cursing him, kicking; using him as the effigy for all the men, all the users and killers and brutes, who had turned her into what she'd become.

A mother who had killed her own children.

Her fury grew, anger becoming rage becoming an unquenchable fire. She screamed, tore at him, tried to hurt, disfigure him as harshly and painfully as possible.

Finally, his eyes still reflecting nothing but a quiet calm, he hugged her arms to her sides, lifted her off her feet, and threw her into the retreating surf.

"Bast-" she cried out, then froze as he stood over her menacingly.

"Do not ever think," Franco began slowly, "that I have forgotten what you did to me. Huh? How you destroyed me when you betrayed my sainted brother."

His face reddened, his breathing became raspy. "If it were not for a promise I have made to Durete, I would have wrung the life from your body days ago."

He stood with the water washing around his calves, looking down at the woman who lay half covered by the warm tide.

"Your children are your life? My brother was mine. Now I must go to our mother and tell her that her baby is dead, buried somewhere we can't find, without the sacraments or the witness of those that loved him." He paused. "I would gladly trade the lives of your precious children to avoid looking into my mother's eyes at that moment."

Valerie tried to get up, but he pushed her back into the water with his foot.

"Listen to me carefully. I believe that your children live. I want your children to be alive. Because if they are, then it is more likely the Cinesi will negotiate in good faith, as far as they ever do. And it is more likely I will get a chance to avenge my brother's death."

He grew quiet, still, turning back to the water and the deepening bloodreds reflected there. "It is my only reason for not blowing my brains out. And yours."

Valerie-stunned, confused-sat up. "I'm so sorry," was all she could think to say.

"Moriamo tutti."

"We all die," she repeated.

Franco nodded as he started off, down the beach.

For a long moment Valerie watched him go slowly off, understanding, for the first time, that in his grief Franco had dedicated himself to living-albeit for his revenge- rather than dying in his mourning for a soul he could not return to this plain.

Ten minutes later-in a secluded, sandy cove-all memories, pain, recriminations, guilt, and doubts were washed away (for the moment) by the mutually violent s.e.x.

As Franco violently expelled his anger and his fury at Valerie's equally rough, savage, mountingly alive frenzy, the two found something within each other. A commonality of the most primitive level of existence.

As the Corsican's thrusts threatened to split her apart, as her kicks and scratching bruised and gashed the man, as their blood spilled into the raging surf, was thrown up into their faces, something inside her died.

Was reborn.

"Moriamo tutti!" she called out at the height of the violent tenderness.

And she began to live... not for ambition or self-improvement; not to provide her children a perfect world; not to gain power, ascendancy, or control.

But simply, and completely, for revenge.

The Champ-de-Mars is about as far removed from the quiet beauty of the French Mediterranean coast as possible. It is pageant and poetry, neon and subtlety, a tribute to Paris's elegant past and its cacophonous present. Running almost the length of the city, it is the magnet that draws almost all visitors and residents of the glorious metropolis, if only for a moment, if only to say, "I was there."

But Herb Stone wasn't interested in tourism or history. The crowds of pa.s.sersby he found both comforting and frightening. Coloration and threat. But even this he largely ignored as he wandered through the music-churning, flashing-lights experience. His eyes remaining locked on the statue about a half-block ahead.

With the Eiffel Tower behind it, the statue of Mars Ascending seemed somehow out of place, its smooth pale pink marble contrasting against the copper giant. But there was also something very right about the placement- the G.o.d of war and destruction serenely looking up at a monument to peace and prosperity.

"Only in France," he said aloud as he stopped at the foot of the statue.

"You have no appreciation of art, Mr. Stone?"

Herb didn't turn to acknowledge Avidol Goldman. "Well, this one piece perhaps." He gestured toward the lightning in the angry G.o.d's left hand. "He has purpose, commitment, dedication to mission. I appreciate those qualities, Reb Goldman."

He turned to face the old man. "I was expecting Ms. Alvarez."

"We all must learn to live with disappointment," Avidol said as he studied the man with equal frankness.

"Yes, I know," Herb said somewhat sadly. "The story of my life, it seems." He followed Avidol through the crowded park. "Do you know Paris, Reb Goldman?"

The old man nodded. "Very well. When my family came from Greece to the United States, we stopped here for several years."

"Really?" Herb sounded genuinely interested. "When was that?"

"Oh, just before the war. We lived in the Twenty-third Arrondis.e.m.e.nt for three years, I think. We left for England, then America, around 1939."

Herb was impressed. "I would've killed to see Paris back then. It must've been so ... alive!"

Avidol stopped, a dour look crossing his strong face. "Can you hear yourself, Stone? Even in admiration, you mix death and life."

Herb laughed. "My apologies, sir. We're not all lifelong pacifists like you."

Avidol gestured to the right, by a noisy carousel. "I was not always a pacifist, as you put it."

"No?"

"No. You will please hand me your overcoat and jacket."

Herb did as he was requested. "Oh, don't stop. Please." Avidol sat down on a bench and methodically checked the pockets, patting down and squeezing the lining, the padding, as he'd been shown.

"There is little to tell. I was a boy, full of myself and the world. Convinced that right must triumph over wrong and that I should be the tool of that."

"Admirable sentiment."

Avidol shook his head. "A foolish one. There were fascists in Greece even then. Bullies in their black shirts that also believed they were right and instruments for correction."

Herb studied the old man as he put on his jacket. "You killed one, he said in an astonished tone."

Avidol sighed. "Three of them attacked a young girl from a neighboring town. I came across the outrage as it was just beginning. He paused," a tear appearing and working its way down into his full beard. "I stopped it."

Herb froze as he was shrugging on the overcoat. "You killed all three. It was a statement, not a question, so sure was he of the answer.

Avidol got up, walking around the carousel. Herb followed.

"It was why we had to leave Greece." It took many years, many prayers, much thoughtful study and soul-searching before I felt my G.o.d's forgiveness for that irredeemable act. He shook his head. "I don't think my father ever forgave me."

He gestured at a coffee kiosk in front of them. Herb nodded, took a last look at the old man, then walked over.

Xenos stepped out of the shadows. "h.e.l.lo, Herb."

But the spymaster just stood there, staring deeply at, into, the younger man.

"What the h.e.l.l you looking at?"

Herb seemed to snap out of it. "Just never noticed how much you resemble your father."