Rules of Deception

“Who did this?” she asked.

“I thought I saw something…a shadow…I heard a door slam. He must have run away.”

“The police will be here any minute. We have to go.”

Jonathan stood. Suddenly, the light seemed to be exceedingly bright and he had to blink. He took a breath, waiting for the remorse that inevitably accompanied death. But it didn’t come. If anything he felt fresh, almost happy, and much too energetic for someone who hadn’t slept a wink the night before. He ran a hand through his hair. His fingertips bristled at the touch. All his senses were enhanced. Sight. Touch. Sound. His mouth, though, was dry and pasty. He checked his image in the mirror hanging on the wall. His eyes stared back, wild and accusing, the pupils almost fully dilated.

The buzz was coming on stronger now, and he recognized what it was: high-octane, clean-burning amphetamine, with a little something special thrown in to heighten the senses.

He dug the package of mints from his pocket. How many had he consumed in the last hour? Two? Three?

“Come, Jonathan. Right now.” Simone grabbed his arm and tried to guide him toward the door, but Jonathan shook himself free. “Give me a minute,” he said, taking stock of the situation. “I’m not leaving until I find out something about this guy.”

“But, Jonathan…”

“Did you hear me?” he snapped. “Do you think we’re supposed to just keep ru

A laptop sat opened on the desk, the screen a blizzard of warring pixels. He hit a few keys, but the image failed to clear up. He turned his attention to the desk and its contents. He opened the top drawer and came eye to eye with a semiautomatic pistol. He was well enough acquainted with handguns to recognize it as a SIG-Sauer, the sidearm favored by military officers across the Third World. The rest of the drawer held a mess of papers, pens, and pencils. He spilled the contents on the desktop and rummaged through it. Notes with names and telephone numbers. Assorted bills. Matchbooks.

The filing drawer was locked. He snapped a letter opener in two trying to pry it open, before giving up. He turned his attention to the “in” and “out” trays on the credenza behind the desk. He flipped through the papers. “ZIAG” read the header on an office memorandum, and beneath it the company’s full name: Zug Industriewerk AG. It was from a Ha

Eva Kruger.

There it was: his proof in black and white. As if the corpse with a bullet in his brain wasn’t enough.

The memo read, “Completion is foreseen for late first quarter 200-. Final shipment to client will be made on 10.2. Disassembly of all manufacturing apparatus to be completed by 13.2.”

“I hear a siren,” pleaded Simone. “Please, Jonathan. Let’s get out of here.”

“In a second.”

Several buff envelopes lay beneath the memo. Inside the first, he found three passport-sized photographs of Emma, similar to the one on the fake driver’s license. A second envelope held more photographs, this time of a wan blond man more or less Jonathan’s age. “Hoffma

“Cover,” Jonathan murmured, remembering a word he’d picked up from one of the spy novels he’d devoured as a teenager. Everything is cover. Emma who isn’t Emma. Amphetamines made to look like breath mints. To everything and everyone, a disguise. He looked at the body sprawled on the floor. And Blitz? Who was he when he wasn’t Blitz?

Jonathan shuddered as the scale of the deception grew clearer. This was no one-time subterfuge. Emma was not bribing African health ministers or buying pharmaceuticals on the gray market. This was something bigger. Something on an entirely different scale. This was the world of “Go” pills and false identities and perfectly doctored driver’s licenses.

“Jonathan, please!” Simone clutched the chair back, as if to keep herself from ru

Sirens. At least two of them. He lifted his head, and in that second, he could tell that they were getting closer, not farther away, and that they were approaching at warp speed. Sweeping his arm across the desk, he gathered all the papers and stuffed them into a leather briefcase next to the credenza. “Go,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

“Hurry!”

“I’ll be right there,” he said, pushing her out of the room. “Go out the back!”

Simone ran from the room.

Jonathan stood in the doorway. The sirens were just outside. Agitated voices punched through the relentless patter of rain. Instead of leaving, he ran to Blitz’s desk and opened the top drawer. He stared at the pistol, then picked it up and slipped it into his waistband.

In the hall, he slowed long enough to see the police cars next to the curb, officers with guns drawn rushing the house. A short, determined man in a black overcoat was leading them up the gravel path.

Police? Where was the ambulance he’d phoned?

Questions. Too many questions.

Jonathan ran through the house, catching up to Simone at the back door. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her through the garden.

“Where are we going?” she asked, struggling to keep up with him. “The car’s the other way.”

“Forget the car. We can come back for it.”

They didn’t stop at the dirt road, but continued up the hillside. Ignoring the wind and the rain and the chest-high brush, Jonathan carved a path to the crest. Simone huffed and wheezed and swore, but somehow she stayed with him. When he finally looked back, they’d gained four hundred feet in altitude and the villa was a half mile away.

“I can’t go on,” said Simone, clamoring for breath. “I need to rest.”

But it was Emma’s voice he heard, and for a moment, he swore he saw her, dressed in red and black, standing on the slope beneath them. He grabbed Simone’s hand. “Come on,” he said. “There’s only one way.”

And clutching the briefcase to his chest, he turned and headed higher into the mountains.

29

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