“You’re not ready,” she said.

It was far more than merely that, of course. I was mad, or else the world was mad, or maybe it was both. But I could only nod. I had opened myself to Olivia, just a bit, in hopes that she would open up much more to me. Through that tiny opening had crept a glacier that would cover me completely if I wasn’t careful.

She got into her car. She started the engine and rolled down her window. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Then she drove away.

21

The rumble of Olivia’s tires on the gravel faded behind me, but I didn’t turn to watch her go. The freezing she had started in my nerves seemed to forbid it. So I stood still as one mad vision fell into another. The gurgling fountain there beside me overflowed into the world. It filled up everything, absolutely everything between the earth and outer space above. I rose on that swirling tide. I drifted through the emptiness inside my skull. There was no calm and distant place where I could make a stand.

Panic came with chaos to destroy that fantasy. From all directions, unconnected ideas trailed away before I understood them. Everything I tried to cling to vanished. I saw Haley standing at the open doorway of her mansion, smiling down upon me with teeth like stars in a constellation. Radiating from her was the physical texture of our love. How I wanted to be with her. Was that possible? Could I be where she was now?

“Sir? Sir?”

I returned.

Simon stood beside me. “There is a call for you.”

He was holding out a portable telephone. I took it. I put it to my ear and said, “This is Malcolm,” It helped to state my own name as a fact.

“It’s Olivia.”

“Oh, hi. How are you?”

There was a pause. “Well, I’m okay. It’s only been a minute, after all.”

I tried to laugh. It came out sounding something like a sob.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I am. Yes.”

“Well, I just thought I ought to call to tell you there’s a man in a car outside your gates.”

“Miss Lane’s gates.”

“What? Oh yes, of course. Well, anyway, he’s parked out there, and when I drove by, I saw him taking pictures with a telephoto lens.”

That was strange. I thought I said as much aloud, but apparently I didn’t, because she said, “Malcolm, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Okay. Well, I just wanted to tell you that.”

I said, “Thank you very much,” and then hung up.

Simon searched my face. “Is there some kind of difficulty?”

“Let’s go see.”

We walked down the driveway. It was a long walk underneath the sycamores. When we reached the gates, I punched in the code at the keypad, and they swung open. We went out, and there, as Olivia had said, was a small car parked about one hundred feet away. In it sat the Guatemalan Fidel Castro.

Simon and I stood and stared at him. He sat and stared back at us. I started walking toward him. He raised a camera to his eye and aimed the long lens at me. When I got closer, he lowered the camera and started the car. I was almost to him when he stepped on the gas. The car leaped forward. I stood still and watched it come. I saw Castro smiling through the windshield, accelerating straight at me.

Simon tackled me from the side. We fell together on the grass next to the road as Castro roared past, inches from our feet.

Lying on the ground by Simon, staring at the sky, I said, “Are you okay?”

“It would seem so,” said Simon.

“That was a good tackle.”

“Kind of you to say so.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t learn to do that playing rugby.”

“No.”

“Do I hear him coming back?”

Simon sat up and looked down the road. “I’m afraid so.”

“Maybe we should move.”

We got up and hustled toward the gate, but it was too far away. Castro was upon us while we were still a few yards from the driveway. Between the estate wall on one side, and the neighbor’s fence on the other, we had no place to hide.

“Move away,” I said. “It’s me he wants.”

Instead, Simon walked to the center of the road and turned to face the oncoming car. He had bits of grass on his black suit and in his gray hair. He reached behind his back and withdrew an automatic that had been concealed beneath his suit coat. He assumed a firing stance I recognized well. Simon waited in the path of the oncoming car with a calmness one might see in someone waiting for a bus.

When Castro was at fifty yards, Simon squeezed off three methodical shots. Every one of them hit the windshield. One was slightly to the left of Castro. One was slightly to his right. One barely missed the top of his head. The car swerved and missed Simon as it passed. It kept going.

Simon reached back to replace the weapon in its holster as we walked toward the gate.

“A sidearm?” I said.

“Indeed.”

“Since when?”

“It seemed a wise precaution after the incident with the bomb.”

Teru stood just inside the gates when we entered the grounds. He said, “Was that shots I heard?”

Simon pressed the buttons on the keypad, and the massive gates swung closed behind us as I told Teru what had just happened.

Teru looked at Simon and said, “You missed the guy three times?”

“I beg to differ, Mr. Fujimoto. One does place one’s shots with care.”

As the three of us walked underneath the sycamores, I thought about the training required to be able to stand in front of an oncoming car and calmly bracket the driver’s head with three warning shots. I thought about the fact that England often attached members of its secret services to diplomatic teams, just as the CIA often stationed people at American embassies.

I said, “What were you before you went into buttling, Simon? MI6? Royal Marines?”

“One couldn’t say.”

“You might as well. One of these days I’ll find out anyway.”

“Will you indeed, sir?”

“Don’t call me, ‘sir,’ Simon. My name is Malcolm.”

“My apologies, Mr. Cutter.”

I sighed. “Simon…”

“Yes?”

“Never mind.”

22

I called Valentín Vega, but the hotel operator said he wasn’t answering his phone. I left a voice mail with my number. He returned the call about an hour after sunset. I told him what Castro had done, and he apologized. Again.

“A couple of things,” I said. “Get Castro out of town. If he comes after me again, I’ll kill him.”

“That would be unfortunate.”

“Mainly for him.”

“You said there were a couple of things?”

“The other thing is you. It’s becoming harder and harder to believe Castro is doing this because he’s crazy. I don’t think you’d bring a man like that on a mission.”

“I assure you, Mr. Cutter, I knew nothing of the incident at the cemetery. When you told me about it, I was most severe with Fidel. I am shocked that he assaulted you again. It is difficult not to view this as a personal betrayal, but I feel I must be patient because I truly believe my friend has lost control. Something has happened to Fidel these last few days. He has been unsettled for some time, but this… this is something new.”