Nemesis (FBI Thriller #19)(95)

“That didn’t work out for you, did it?”

He licked the blood off his lips. “I can’t die. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

His head fell to the side and his eyes stared up at the sky, seeing nothing now. He was dead. It didn’t make up for Nasim’s murder, but it was all they’d get. Sherlock stared down at him, aware now of a dozen people beginning to crowd around her. She heard Dillon’s voice ordering them back. Kelly came running up to fall on her knees beside Sherlock, Cal on her heels.

Sherlock rose slowly, Basara’s blood covering the front of her white shirt, and felt Dillon’s arm go around her.

It was over.





SAVICH HOUSE


GEORGETOWN


Tuesday night

By the fourth verse of their sing-along of “The Little Kid with the Greatest Mom,” Sean was finally down for the count. It was a country-and-western song Savich had written for him when he’d been two years old. The words weren’t all that good, but then again, neither was Sherlock’s voice. It wasn’t a problem. Sean didn’t know any better. They stood together, looking down at their sleeping son. Savich kissed her temple. “Welcome home.”

She turned in his arms and pressed her cheek against his neck. “I hated being away from you and Sean.” She gave a little laugh. “I’ve told you that half a dozen times since I walked in the door.”

“Keep saying it, makes my heart settle down. I don’t know who was happier to see you, Sean or Astro. It was me, actually.” He pulled her tight against him again.

“I always had agents around me, Dillon, you know that.”

“You could have been under a blanket of agents and I’d still feel the same way.”

She reared back, touched her fingertips to his face. “I feel the same way about you, but it’s over now, finally over. Basara is dead.” She blinked. “Hard to believe it all started less than a week ago at JFK.” She saw Nasim’s face, Marie Claire’s face, and turned it off. “The thought of Basara using terrorist acts to cover up his assassinations—murdering hundreds of people for the sole purpose of murdering one—and all for money. I think about all those people now dead because they happened to be riding the TGV in France. And what if he’d succeeded in bombing Saint Patrick’s and Saint Paul’s? I wonder how many years this goes back? How many people he killed? He was a psychopath, Dillon, evil to the core.”

“He’s dead now, his evil with him,” Savich said, and thought of how close she’d come to being his next victim. “As to the millions of dollars he’s got stashed in accounts in Switzerland, we’ll find them.

“You know what I can’t get over? Basara would still be alive, still be in business, if he’d used his money and his contacts to disappear when he had the chance. But he couldn’t accept losing. He needed someone to blame, and he picked you, Sherlock—a woman, no less—and made you into his nemesis.” He shook his head, felt the fear for her well up again from deep inside him, tamped it down. He kissed her, held her tightly. “Welcome home, for the twelfth time. You’re exhausted, sweetheart. You ready for bed?”

He was right, she’d been so tired she’d thought she would pass out, but not now. No, not now. She gave him a slow smile, took his hand, and led him to their bedroom. He was big and warm, and she loved him to the ends of the earth.

Savich stripped down to boxers and a T-shirt in under thirty seconds, but when he turned he saw she was lying in the middle of the bed, fully clothed, sound asleep. She never woke up when he undressed her, slipped her nightgown over her head. He looked at her beloved face for a very long time before he turned out the lights and went to sleep.

? ? ?

SAVICH DREAMED he was freezing. Frigid water was pouring over him, drenching his T-shirt and boxers, hitting his face. Powerful waves were slamming him back against something hard and unyielding—a rock. The water receded, only to roar back against him, pounding at him, freezing him to his bones. He tried to get away from the waves, but he couldn’t move. Thick ropes held him tight against a huge rock that jutted out from the sea. What sea?

He was dreaming he was strapped down to a rock? He pulled and jerked with all his strength against the ropes, tried to work his hands free from beneath the thick hemp, but he couldn’t. The ropes were wet from the freezing waves, and growing tighter.

It was no dream. It was Dalco.

Savich heard a loud sweeping noise and looked up to see a huge black eagle with an enormous wingspan circling above him. It swooped low until its black wings covered him, and it dug its beak directly into his side. The pain was so unspeakable he nearly passed out. The eagle pulled out its bloody beak and soared upward, then dove down at him again the next moment. Again it sent its beak into him, digging deeper, pulling and ripping, until he screamed from the horrendous pain. When the eagle pulled its beak out of his body again, Savich looked at its black opaque eyes. The eagle returned his stare, looked back down at him for several seconds. Its eyes weren’t opaque after all. Dalco was behind them.

The eagle sent its beak into his side yet again, burrowing deeper, hollowing him, gashing out parts of him. He nearly passed out. He caught himself. No, it was Dalco, he couldn’t let that madman win. He had to fight the pain, had to figure out what was happening. He was tied to a rock, couldn’t get free. A huge eagle was digging its beak into his side. What was this all about? Who was Dalco playing this time? Was he playing out the Prometheus myth with himself as the eagle? Zeus sent an eagle every day to tear out and eat Prometheus’s liver only to have it grow back again every night, and repeated the cycle endlessly, at least until Hercules saved him, eventually, maybe, depending on who was telling the story. It was Zeus’s punishment because Prometheus had dared to give mankind the gift of fire.