Skirting the stub of the stalagmite Bourne had broken off, they arrived at the chimney.
"We have to go up," Bourne said. "It's the only way out."
"I'll do what I have to do."
"Don't worry," Bourne said. "I'll help you."
As he was about to hoist himself up into the chimney, Lindros put a hand on his arm.
"Jason, I never lost hope. I knew you'd find me," he said. "I owe you a debt I can never adequately repay."
Bourne squeezed his arm briefly. "Now come on. Follow me up."
The ascent took longer than the descent. For one thing, the climb up was far more difficult and tiring. For another, there was Lindros. Several times, Bourne was obliged to stop and move back a meter or two to help his friend get through a particularly rough spot in the chimney. And he had to haul Lindros bodily through one of the narrow places.
At last, after a harrowing thirty minutes, they emerged onto the top of the overhang. While Martin regained his breath, Bourne took a reading of the weather. The wind had swung around. It was now coming out of the south. The light pattering of snow was all that was coming down-and clearly all that would come down: The front had shifted away. The ancient demons of Ras Dejen had been merciful this time.
Bourne pulled Lindros to his feet, and they began the trek to the waiting helicopter.
Chapter Eleven
ANNE HELD lived in a two-story Federal redbrick house a stone's throw from Dumbarton Oaks in Georgetown. It had black shutters, a slate roof, and a neat privet hedge out front. The house had belonged to her late sister, Joyce. She and her husband, Peter, had died three years ago when their small plane had gone down in fog as they headed toward Martha's Vineyard. Anne had inherited the house, which she never could have afforded on her own.
Most nights, returning home from CI, Anne didn't miss her Lover. For one thing, the DCI invariably kept her late. He'd always been a tireless worker, but after his wife had walked out on him two years ago, he had absolutely no reason to leave the office. For another, once she was home she kept herself busy up until the moment she took an Ambien, slipped beneath the covers, and snapped off the bedside lamp.
But there were other nights-like this one-when she could not turn her thoughts away from her Lover. She missed the scent of him, the feel of his muscled limbs, the flutter of his flat belly against hers, the exquisite sensation as he took her-or she took him. The emptiness inside her his absence caused was a physical pain, the only anodyne more work or drugged sleep.
Her Lover. He had a name, of course. And a thousand love-names she had given him over the years. But in her mind, in her dreams, he was her Lover. She had met him in London, at a festive consular party-the ambassador of somewhere-or-other was celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday, and all of his six-hundred-odd friends had been invited, she among them. She had been working then for the director of MI6, an old and trusted friend of the DCI.
At once, she had grown dizzy and a little afraid. Dizzy at his proximity, afraid of his profound effect on her. She was, at twenty, not without experience when it came to the opposite sex. However, her experience had been with callow boys. Her Lover was a man. She missed him now with an ache that left a knot in her breast.
Her throat was parched. She crossed the entryway and entered the library, on the other side of which was the hallway to the kitchen. She had taken no more than three or four steps into the room when she stopped dead in her tracks.
Nothing was as she had left it. The sight snapped her out of the emotional pit she'd fallen into. Without taking her eyes from the scene, she opened her handbag and took out her Smith & Wesson J-frame. She was a good shot; she practiced twice a month at the CI firing range. Not that she was a big fan of guns, but the training was mandatory for all office personnel.
Thus armed, she took a closer look around. It wasn't as if a sneak thief had broken in and rifled the place. This job was neat and tidy. In fact, if she hadn't been such an anal retentive she