The Names of the Dead Read online

  Wes guessed he’d know soon enough if that had happened, because the police officer would ask for backup and wait here until it arrived. Which wasn’t an option for Wes. He’d have to kill him and get away before any more officers got here. But then he’d be a cop killer, and the Agency would make sure his picture and details were widely distributed with that real-world crime hanging over him.

  The only other option would be to set off on foot, but even if he knew where he was going, it would take him at least a couple of hours to walk into the city, by which time the Agency would have tracked down Wes and Mia’s hotel. And that meant she’d get dragged into it, too, which was the last thing he wanted.

  The police officer got a response, he answered, and ended the call. He switched on a flashlight and moved back to the Lexus, studying the trunk, the interior. He found the gym bag and looked through that, then turned and slowly swept the light across the tree line.

  Wes stepped back, conscious the tree in front of him wasn’t big enough to shield him completely, but knowing that the distance between them, and the sheer expanse of country, would make it hard for the cop to spot him. The light rippled past, and sure enough, continued on its way in a futile sweep.

  The police officer switched off the flashlight but still stood, as if listening to the landscape rather than watching it. Was he waiting for backup? Wes thought of Scottie’s body propped against a tree somewhere behind him. He could shoot the cop, leave the gun in Scottie’s hand . . . No, he wasn’t thinking straight. The only smart option was to get back by foot, maybe reach a bar or suburb where he could call a cab.

  And then at last the police officer moved again. He walked forward and closed the driver’s door of the Lexus. He tried to close the trunk then but it wouldn’t shut, and Wes wondered if Scottie had damaged the mechanism in opening it from the inside. He tried a second time and a third and the trunk finally clunked shut.

  The officer got into his SUV, turned on the engine, sat idling for a little while. Another minute crept by like that before he finally turned it around and headed back down the narrow track.

  Wes still waited where he was, listening to the cicadas, thinking again of Scottie somewhere behind him, praying at the foot of his tree, attracting various insects and other night creatures. Wes didn’t know what this land was used for, so nor did he know how long it would be before the body was found or what would be left of it.

  The police SUV made the road again and turned, not back toward the city, but heading in the other direction. For a while Wes could see the lights arcing this way and that, and for a while longer he could hear the engine growing fainter with distance.

  Once he was certain, he got in the Lexus, turned it around, and headed back the way he’d come. He was less sure of the way in the dark, but after a while he started to pick up the signs to the city center.

  It wasn’t yet midnight when he dropped the car in a quiet residential street and walked back to the hotel, with the city becoming livelier as he got closer. He was sorry they’d have to leave, that she would not get the chance to visit the cathedral, but now that he’d broken cover, he knew there would be no slack.

  He headed directly to Mia’s room and knocked. He sensed her looking through the spyhole at him, then she opened the door. She had a look about her as if she’d been sitting in readiness for the last few hours—she was even wearing her sneakers. But she didn’t seem aggrieved or put out in any way.

  “Will we go now?”

  “Yes.” He stepped into the room and closed the door. “We’ll tell them we have to drive to Málaga for an early meeting.”

  Her eyes lit up. “We’re going to Málaga?”

  “No, that’s what we’ll tell them. We’ll head north, I guess.” He looked at her, thinking of her father, wishing again that he’d taken the time to get to know him, thinking of the way he’d desperately tried to protect his daughter with his various pieces of advice. “Mia, after what I’ve done tonight, things could get worse. They might not, if I stay a step ahead of them, but I don’t know what will happen. I think your father would have advised you to leave me somewhere and go home.”

  She smiled, as if to suggest that Wes had learned nothing. “My father always said to me—Mia, if you look inside, you will always know what is the right thing to do.”

  He didn’t need to ask what she thought the right thing was on this occasion.

  “Okay, but we do have to leave.”

  “Where will we go?”

  “I don’t know.” He tried to think of something positive to say, but could think of nothing. He’d killed Scottie, used up his only leads, run out of forward momentum. “I just don’t know.”

  And finally she looked concerned and Wes understood why. It wasn’t because of the possible danger, but because Wes had been giving her a direction since stumbling out of those woods, and it alarmed her to see him lost.

  Thirty-One

  They drove northeast out of the city. Wes took the tablet from the glove compartment and opened the Gmail account Raphael had given him. The email with the embassy staff list had come from another Gmail account, but Wes had no way of knowing if Raphael used it regularly—it was perfectly in keeping with Raphael’s approach to security that he’d use it once to contact Wes and would never use it again. But it wasn’t as if Wes had any other choices right now.

  He sent an email asking Raphael if he could find the location of a CIA officer called Sam Garvey. Wes guessed the two remaining members of his old team were still with Garvey, so he added their names as additional options—Billy Tavares and Kyle Dexter.

  Wes had never thought much of Kyle Dexter, and had wondered a few times how he’d managed to get through training, let alone survive in the field. He always needed someone else to tell him what to do, and then followed them blindly. So it wasn’t too difficult to picture Kyle being swept up by Sam’s narrative.

  It was harder to accept that Billy Tavares had bailed on Wes. Billy was the only Native American Wes had ever met in the Agency, an Arapaho from Wyoming—smart, cynical, a shrewd operator, someone who’d covered Wes’s back so often it was hard to imagine him betraying his former boss now. But he guessed it depended on what Billy had been told.

  He put the tablet away and looked at the road for a while. Mia was driving with her usual casual confidence. She’d seemed disconcerted by Wes’s lack of direction, but there were no signs of unease now.

  “I guess we shouldn’t drive too far tonight. It’s late.”

  She pointed at one of the signs. “Sigüenza. It’s close. There’s a parador there. And a cathedral.”

  “You’ve been before?”

  She laughed. “No.”

  He’d hardly left her alone since telling her that they had to leave, certainly not long enough for her to research nearby cities, their cathedrals and hotels. He could only imagine that she walked around with all of this information in her head.

  “Well, let’s hope the parador has rooms free.”

  “Yes, but there will be other hotels too, I think. And in the morning I can go to the cathedral, or will we need to leave immediately?”

  “No, you’ll have time to visit the cathedral.”

  He was about to remind her again that she didn’t need to leave anywhere, run anywhere, but he knew what her response would be. And as long as they kept moving regularly, it would be hard for anyone to track them.

  It was a little over an hour later that they reached Sigüenza. The parador did have rooms and the receptionist appeared unfazed by their arrival unannounced in the early hours of the morning.

  They turned in immediately, but Wes sat for a little while watching the news, then struggled to sleep as his mind kept turning over what his next move might be. He wasn’t off the grid—and wasn’t sure he had the stamina to go off the grid—so even if they kept moving constantly, he wouldn’t be able to stay ahead of Sam forever.

  And Sam wouldn’t give up. Ironically, by killing Pine and his two colleagues
and by killing Scottie, Wes would have only made Sam more insecure and therefore more determined. Up until this point, Sam had been worried about his own past being exposed, but Scottie’s death would have removed any doubt that Wes intended to neutralize the threat completely.

  The only trouble was, unless Wes could find out where Sam was based now, he wouldn’t be in much of a position to neutralize anything. He’d be operating blind, knowing the whole time that Sam would be using all the resources at his disposal to close in on Wes instead.

  Eventually he drifted off and slept well for a few hours. He was woken by people chatting loudly as they walked past his room and was surprised when he checked the time and saw it was just before nine—he felt so rested that he was convinced he’d slept longer.

  He’d finished breakfast and was lingering over coffee when Mia came in. He could tell from the air of peace about her that she’d already been to the cathedral. He envied her that outlet.

  “Good morning, Mia.”

  “Good morning, Wes.” She sat down opposite him. “Where will we go today?”

  “I don’t know.” A little of her contentment crumbled away at the edges and he felt bad for that and tried to put a more positive spin on being so lost. “I guess if we keep heading north for now . . . I need some information, and until I get it I won’t know where I need to go next. But it won’t be Spain, so north is good.”

  “Barcelona?”

  He shook his head. “Probably best for us to stay out of the big cities for now. We can head in that direction maybe, toward the French border, but stay away from the big places.” In an attempt to give her some of the focus she so clearly wanted from him, he added, “Maybe if we drive on some of the smaller backroads we can find some villages with nice churches.”

  She smiled, either at the image or at the sense of purpose.

  “Sigüenza is very nice. It’s quite small, but it has a cathedral. I think today will be very hot.” He nodded, unsure what other response he could offer. “Is the information about your son?”

  “No, I . . . I’m not sure how I’m gonna find him. And maybe it’s not a good idea for me to find him just yet, not until I know they won’t kill me. The information I’m waiting for—it’s about the man who got me sent to prison, the man who’s trying to kill me. I need to find out where he is.”

  “So you can kill him.”

  “I guess so. It’s the only way.”

  “The lady yesterday said you weren’t meant to find him. The lady you shot in the leg.”

  “Yeah, I know the one you mean.”

  “She said you weren’t meant to find him, that your ex-wife hid him from you.”

  He’d assumed she was talking about Sam Garvey but realized now that she’d gone back to talking about Ethan.

  “That might be true. And what do you think? He’s my son. His mother died.”

  “My mother died. I think a child needs a mother or a father.”

  “And your dad, he brought you up okay, didn’t he?”

  Maybe a lot of people would have questioned that, seeing the way she was, the problems she’d had and overcome. But Wes got the feeling Mia had been born different, and to the best of his abilities, her father had equipped her to live in the world.

  Mia, anyway, was under no doubt. “He was a wonderful father.”

  And Wes took some consolation from that. He understood all too well why Rachel had wanted to hide Ethan away, but if General Nikola Pavić, convicted war criminal, could be a wonderful father, then maybe so could James Wesley.

  Thirty-Two

  When they got to the car, Wes found his bible sitting on the passenger seat. He picked it up without comment and, once they were on their way, he opened it. She’d moved the bookmark again, to a chapter in John’s Gospel, the anointing of feet and the procession of Jesus into Jerusalem.

  Wes scanned through it looking for underlined passages, but as if summing up his own current uncertainty, Patrice had left only one notation, a question mark in the margin alongside a line of text: He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

  Wes understood the confusion, because Patrice—or at least the Patrice he’d known—loved life with a vengeance. His question mark was probably asking why he should have to hate his life in this world to gain paradise in the next. Wes didn’t feel strongly enough about his own life to be on either side of the fence—it was what it was, devoid of all love or hate, beyond hope or damnation.

  He put the book aside and looked out at the road. Sigüenza was small and they’d already left it behind. Mia had taken his instructions on board and for the next hour or so they drove through increasingly remote country, avoiding the major roads, encountering no large towns or cities.

  It was nearly lunchtime when they saw a village or small town perched on a hill ahead of them. A church tower stood tall at the top of it.

  “Shall we go there?”

  “Sure, why not? Maybe there’ll be a restaurant. We could get lunch, maybe even stay the night if there’s a hotel.”

  The landscape was dotted with trees, similar to the shallow hillside on which he’d killed Scottie Peters the previous evening. And yet, in some strange way, it reminded him instead of the country around Mardin, where he’d once been happy. It was surprisingly empty, and timeless too. There were some wind turbines on a distant ridge, and they alone offered any hint of modernity.

  A smaller road branched off the one they’d been traveling, and even though there was no signpost, Mia turned off and drove along it, the SUV’s suspension tested for the first time since she’d picked him up. They saw no other cars, no signs of agriculture or industry.

  The village, too, seemed quiet as they passed the first houses. She slowed down, until at last they reached the small square and the church at the top of the little hill.

  They got out, and Wes immediately knew that the village didn’t look abandoned, it was abandoned. Now that he looked, some of the houses were in a state of disrepair, but they were all shuttered up, like vacation homes awaiting another season that would not come.

  There wasn’t a sound, and not even a breeze cutting through the handful of narrow streets. The baked intensity of the air felt like reason enough for the inhabitants to have given up and moved on. It seemed fitting somehow, a desolate village matching Wes’s mood, his loss of purpose.

  Mia approached the church door and tried it but found it locked. She started to walk around the building and he fell in with her. They walked a little way through the adjoining streets before giving up and heading back to the car. It was so hard to believe that an entire village could have died that Wes still looked from side to side, expecting some sign, a single house still occupied, a person scurrying away along one of the narrow streets.

  They took to the road again, but the thought of the abandoned village nagged at him, its loneliness unsettling. If it bothered Mia she showed no signs of it. Her concentration was entirely on the road, as if the village had been possessed of no more meaning than that they had not been able to eat or find a bed for the night, that she had not been able to visit the church.

  After another couple of hours the landscape shifted again, more forested now, more temperate. As they came over a small crest in the road they could see what looked like another hilltop village ahead of them.

  “Shall we go there?”

  It appeared to be directly in their path anyway.

  “Sure.”

  He was actually thinking that this landscape was no less remote than the place where they’d stopped, and that this village would probably be no less abandoned, but as if reading his thoughts, she smiled and said, “This one is different.”

  “I’ll take it on trust.”

  Once they were down off the crest and among the trees they lost sight of the village, but Wes also sensed that it was no longer in their path, that the road was taking them away from it.

  They reached a turning and t
his time there was a sign, albeit faded and in need of repair. The words “Monasterio de Santiago” were faintly visible but nothing else. Mia turned without hesitation and Wes guessed there was no reason not to—it wasn’t as if they were in a rush to get anywhere else.

  With that thought in mind, he checked the Gmail account, but there was nothing. He put the tablet back in the glove compartment and looked across at Mia. She was smiling a little, maybe simply because the buildings they’d seen were a monastery rather than a village.

  “You understand it’s probably deserted?”

  “No, I have faith.”

  He shrugged, smiling too—if she still had faith after seeing that sign maybe she was onto something. They drove for fifteen minutes, but this road, even though it was narrow, seemed well maintained, and Wes began to think her faith might not be completely misplaced.

  They started to climb and immediately took a sharp right-hand bend and found the walls of the monastery rising up in front of them, the gates open onto what looked like a lush and bright interior. To the left of the gates was a gravel parking lot, home to a dozen upmarket cars.

  She parked and turned off the engine, and Wes said, “Well, I was wrong about that. And either these are some really wealthy monks or this is a hotel.”

  She smiled back at him. “No one will find you here.”

  “That’s true. I guess we can stay a couple of days, if they have room. Maybe by then I’ll know what to do next.”

  Even as he said it, though, he started to worry he was riding his luck. Until now, Mia had provided cover for him, but Grace and her boyfriend had seen her, knew her name was Mia. It wouldn’t take too many lucky guesses to identify her and put a trace on her credit cards.

  They walked through the gates, seeing for the first time a small brass plaque—Hotel Monasterio de Santiago. A door opened into a reception area and a young man came out of a back office to greet them.

  Even as the man was welcoming them, Mia interrupted him, saying, “Do you have a chapel here?”

  He took a moment to regroup, then smiled. “Of course. For weddings?”