The Apprentice

His head explodes in a mist of blood. It is a strangely graceful ballet, the way his body arches as it falls backward. The way her arms swing toward me with unerring precision. I have time only to twist sideways, and then the second bullet bursts from her gun.

I do not feel it pierce the back of my neck. The strange ballet continues, only now it is my own body that performs the dance, arms flinging a circle as I hurtle through the air in a swan’s dive. I land on my side, but there is no pain on impact, only the sound of my torso slamming against dirt. I lie waiting for the ache, the throb, but there is nothing. Only a sense of surprise.

I hear her struggle out of the car. She has been lying cramped in there for over an hour, and it takes her several minutes to make her legs obey.

She approaches me. Shoves her foot against my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. I am fully conscious, and I look up at her with full comprehension of what is about to happen. She points the weapon at my face, her hands shaking, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Smeared blood has dried on her left cheek like war paint. Every muscle in her body is primed to kill. Every instinct screams at her to squeeze the trigger. I stare back, unafraid, watching the battle play out in her eyes. Wondering which form of defeat she will choose. In her hands she holds the weapon of her own destruction; I am merely the catalyst.

Kill me, and the consequences will destroy you.

Let me live, and I will forever inhabit your nightmares.

She releases a soft sob. Slowly she lowers the weapon. “No,” she whispers. And again, louder. Defiantly: “No.” Then she straightens, takes a deep breath.

And walks back to the car.

TWENTY-FIVE

Rizzoli stood in the clearing, looking down at the four iron stakes that had been pounded into the earth. Two for the arms, two for the legs. Knotted cord, already looped and waiting to be tightened around wrists and ankles, had been found nearby. She avoided lingering over the obvious purpose of those stakes. Instead she moved around the site with the businesslike demeanor of any cop looking over a crime scene. That it would have been her limbs restrained to the stakes, her flesh rent by the instruments contained in Hoyt’s knapsack, was a detail she kept at a distance. She could feel her colleagues watching her, could hear the way their voices grew hushed when she came near. The bandage over her sutured scalp conspicuously labeled her as the walking wounded, and they were all dealing with her as though she were glass, easily shattered. She could not abide that, not now, when she needed, more than ever, to believe she was not a victim. That she was in full control of her emotions.

And so she walked the site, as she would have any other crime scene. The site had already been photographed and picked over by the State Police the evening before and the scene was officially released, but this morning Rizzoli and her team felt compelled to examine it as well. She tramped with Frost into the woods, tape measure whicking in and out of the canister as they measured the distance from the road to the small clearing where the State Police had discovered Warren Hoyt’s knapsack. Despite the personal significance of this circle of trees, she viewed the clearing with detachment. Recorded in her notebook was a catalog of what had been found inside the knapsack: scalpels and clamps, retractor and gloves. She’d studied the photos of Hoyt’s footwear impressions, now cast in plaster, and had stared at evidence bags holding knotted cords, without stopping to think about whose wrists those cords were intended for. She glanced up to check the changing weather, without acknowledging to herself that this same view of treetops and sky would have been her last. Jane Rizzoli the victim was not here today. Although her colleagues might watch her, waiting for a glimpse, they would not see her. No one would.

She closed her notebook and glanced up to see Gabriel Dean walking toward her through the trees. Although her heart lifted at the sight of him, she greeted him with merely a nod, a look that said, Let’s keep it business.

He understood, and they faced each other as two professionals, careful not to betray any hint of the intimacies they had shared only two days before.

“The driver was hired six months ago by VIP Limousines,” she said. “The Yeagers, the Ghents, the Waites- he drove them all. And he had access to VIP’s pickup schedule. He must have seen my name on it. Canceled my scheduled pickup so that he could take the place of the driver who should have been there.”

“And VIP checked out his job references?”

“His references were a few years old, but they were excellent.” She paused. “There was no mention of any military service on his resume.”

“That’s because John Stark wasn’t his real name.”

She frowned at him. “Identity theft?”

Dean gestured toward the trees. They moved out of the clearing and started walking through the woods, where they could speak in private.

“The real John Stark died September 1999 in Kosovo,” said Dean. “U.N. relief worker, killed when his Jeep hit a land mine. He’s buried in Corpus Christi, Texas.”

“Then we don’t even know our man’s real name.”

Dean shook his head. “Fingerprints, dental X-rays, and tissue samples will be sent to both the Pentagon and Central Intelligence.”

“We won’t get any answers from them. Will we?”

“Not if the Dominator was one of theirs. As far as they’re concerned, you’ve taken care of their problem. Nothing more needs to be said or done.”

“I may have resolved their problem,” she said bitterly. “But mine is still alive.”

“Hoyt? He’ll never be a concern to you.”

“God, I should have squeezed off one more shot-”

“He’s probably quadriplegic, Jane. I can’t imagine any worse punishment.”

They emerged from the woods, onto the dirt road. The limousine had been towed away last night, but the evidence of what had transpired here still remained. She looked down at the dried blood where the man known as John Stark had died. A few yards away was the smaller stain where Hoyt had fallen, his limbs senseless, his spinal cord turned to pulp.

I could have finished it, but I let him live. And I still don’t know if it was the right thing to do.

“How are you, Jane?”

She heard the note of intimacy in his question, an unspoken acknowledgment that they were more than merely colleagues. She looked at him and was suddenly self-conscious about her battered face and the lump of bandage on her scalp. This was not the way she’d wanted him to see her, but now that she stood facing him there was no point hiding her bruises, nothing to do but stand straight and meet his gaze.

“I’m fine,” she said. “A few stitches on my scalp, a few sore muscles. And a really bad case of the uglies.” She waved vaguely at her bruised face and laughed. “But you should see the other guy.”

“I don’t think it’s good for you to be here,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s too soon.”

“I’m the one person who should be here.”

“You never cut yourself any slack, do you?”

“Why should I need to?”

“Because you’re not a machine. It will catch up with you. You can’t walk this site and pretend it’s just another crime scene.”

“That’s exactly how I’m treating it.”

“Even after what almost happened?”

What almost happened.

She looked down at the bloodstains in the dirt, and for an instant the road seemed to sway, as though a tremor had shaken the earth, rattling the carefully constructed walls she had put up as shields, threatening the very foundation upon which she stood.

He reached for her hand, a steady touch that brought tears to her eyes. A touch that said: Just this once, you have permission to be human. To be weak.