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Page 25.

13. Paris Apartment (3rd) Death Knocking

Hannah poked her head in, just as he rocked up and down after returning from the bathroom. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just talking to myself."

"Talk to me. I need it more."

"So come out here and sit with me."

"Hold on. I'm going to feed us first."

"Let's get married." It was a joke.

"You are insane." She looked pleased.

"Bad joke. But I like you."

"I can take a joke. Even a bad one sometimes."

At least he could joke with her. She'd saved his life, and she was a good sport besides. Then he felt an icy fist contracting in his gut—what if she got hurt because of him?

Then again, he'd almost been killed because of her.

He heard the refrigerator open. There was a rustling of paper, and the clink of a bottle.

"There's, like, one clean plate in this dump," he heard her say.

Then he heard a crash, and a clatter. "Oh shit."

"You okay?"

"One plate and I dropped it."

He heard scraping, clattering noises.

A moment later, she emerged with a pleased look holding the food. She waved some cold sandwiches and a bottle of Vichy water at him. "Bought these on the way back from the post office."

"Very thoughtful," Rick said. "I'm starving."

They sat at a small round table by the open window. A damp, fresh breeze blew in, along with traffic noise and distant voices. Aircraft thundered overhead in the clouds.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

He chewed, or rather, they faced each other and had a funny-faces chewing contest, so much that they almost burst out laughing and nearly choked to death. She had a high, pretty voice like a bell when she laughed, even with a mouth full of food.

"I hope my situation doesn't get you hurt," he said.

"I can't be any more worried about your situation than I am about my own," she said.

"Fair enough," he said. "Your situation almost got me nuked. But you saved me."

"It was the only decent thing to do."

They ate quietly, nodding and chewing and swallowing.

"Good stuff," he said.

"Mm-MM-mh," she echoed with her cheeks blown up like a monkey's, and her eyes big.

"It's good to be alive," Rick said.

"You're telling me."

They ate hungrily, each thinking of the horror they had witnessed the night before.

"How are you feeling?" she asked soberly.

"Better. Lots better." In his mind's eye, he replayed a pop-pop-pop of shots in the dark alley. He froze, jammed up between here, now, and memory. He saw other things, like exploding military vehicles on a gloomy desert road bathed in moonlight and stars, surrounded by bone-white mountain ridges.

"You need to take your medicine."

He nodded. The explosion had rattled his brain, not to mention seeing bloody boots, helmets, body parts, and glistening caviar splats of gray-pink brain lying around. His thoughts slammed shut like a dark door. He froze. He pushed his food away and sat leaning forward with his head down and his arms out in defense.

"Eat," she urged. She rubbed his arms briskly with her soft hands.

He rose like a drowning swimmer, raising his head out of the abyss. For a moment, he'd forgotten how to breathe, or didn't want to. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He wanted to live. He almost wished he had that phone again to call JAG. He pictured Kendra Walsh—beautiful, with a ball of dark hair and a sweet, wide face. He knew from her eyes that she had something for him, even if her boss was that gigantic linebacker with a face like a wood-chopping stump with an axe in it.

She pushed a plastic bottle into his face. "Rick, here. Drink, man, drink. Get over it."

He took a swig of spritzy, cool water and wished it was whiskey. "Yeah."

"Snap out of it," she said. "Stay with me."

He wiped his forearm across his mouth, took a deep breath to brace himself, and repeated, "Yeah."

She continued her story about the McGuffin or MacFluffin she'd stolen from Wan, "So I knew I had something of great value there. I knew Wan had stolen it, or got his goons to steal it, from some PAX people at a university, who had no wish for it to fall into the wrong hands."

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