The Butler(44)
“I know it isn’t,” Joachim said quietly. “We are not exactly identical, we are what’s called mirror twins. We have the same marks on opposite sides.” He gently picked up the photograph and pointed to a black spot on the subject’s forehead. “My brother has a dark mole on the left side of his forehead, I have the same mark on my right side.” He pushed back the hair at his hairline then and showed them the mole. All the officers stared at the photograph and then at Joachim’s head. The evidence was there, plain to see. “He has another mark on his shoulder, a small birthmark. You can see it in the photograph, in the undershirt he’s wearing. I have the same one on the opposite shoulder.” Without being asked, he took off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it off his shoulder and showed them. There was dead silence in the room, and in spite of the four hours of terror they’d just been through, Olivia felt sorry for him. It was terrifying, humiliating, and heartbreaking all at once.
“The only good news in what you’ve told me,” Joachim said quietly, “is that if you are searching for him, and you thought I was Javier, then he must still be alive. I haven’t been certain of that in years. Although what he’s doing and the choices he has made are hardly something to celebrate, but at least his colleagues haven’t killed him yet. That’s something, I suppose. Although he has been dead to my mother and me for many years.”
The five men left the room and conferred again. They took the photograph with them. Joachim didn’t look at Olivia or say a word, and neither did she. She had no idea what to say. She couldn’t even be angry with him, and she remembered easily when he told her that he had a brother in Argentina that he hadn’t seen in twenty-five years. It was his mirror twin.
The man in plainclothes entered the room again ahead of the others and spoke harshly to Joachim, probably to cover his own embarrassment. He didn’t apologize, instead he was aggressive with him.
“We could send you back to Paris if we wanted to. We can put you on the next plane. Your twin brother is on our list of people who are not allowed to enter the United States. We’ve checked while you were here, under the name of Joachim von Hartmann. You have no criminal history.” And the photographs spoke for themselves, by how they matched the marks on Joachim’s body. “Keep it that way. If your brother contacts you while you’re in the United States, you have an obligation to report it to us, and his whereabouts, if you are aware of them. You’re free to go,” he said and stormed out, obviously frustrated. He thought he had caught a prize but wound up with an innocent man, and made a fool of himself.
One of the officers stayed to lead them back through immigration and customs and left them there. Their luggage was still sitting next to the carousel, and no one said anything more to them. Joachim and Olivia left the terminal. She thought her legs were going to buckle under her. They hadn’t even offered them a sip of water in four and a half hours. Once outside the terminal, Joachim hailed a cab for them, and helped her in. She gave the driver the name of the hotel where Joachim would be staying and told the driver there would be a second stop after that, and then she heard Joachim’s voice next to her.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am, Olivia. They put you through hell, because of my brother.”
“I’m sorry for you too,” she said quietly. “I didn’t know you had a twin, you just mentioned a brother.” It was the first time Joachim had called her by her first name, but in the circumstances, it seemed appropriate. He had been sure for the first four hours that they would be arrested, although it had taken him a while to link it to Javier.
“He’s a terrible person, as you just heard. I used to love him more than anyone on earth, even more than my mother. There is poison in his veins. He’s been dead to us for all these years. He broke my mother’s heart, and mine.” She felt deeply sorry for him when she saw the look on his face, and tears in his eyes.
“You have each other,” she reminded him, and he nodded, and finally had the courage to look at her.
“I am so, so, so sorry for what I just put you through. I never expected something like this to happen or I wouldn’t have come with you.”
“You couldn’t know. We both need a good night’s sleep and we’ll feel better tomorrow.” She didn’t want to talk about it now, but she was suddenly afraid of him, and the baggage he carried with him. What if his brother found them and killed somebody, or kidnapped her, or killed Joachim? It was so enormous that she couldn’t absorb it yet. They were silent on the drive into the city. She lay her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Joachim looked at her and didn’t speak. When they got to the Standard hotel in SoHo, he got out, and said the same words again.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” she said softly. “Get some rest.” Then she left him to check in to the hotel and the cab took her home. It had been the most frightening experience of her entire life. And his. But there was a flicker of hope in his heart from what he’d heard, which mattered more than anything. Javier was still alive.
Chapter 11
Olivia was still feeling shaky and slightly sick when she got to her apartment that night, after the scene at the airport. She had never been treated like a criminal before or come so close to being arrested. She hoped that Joachim had been able to check in to the hotel without a problem, but she didn’t want to call and find out. She needed a break from him, at least for the night, and from the heavy baggage he carried with him. An identical twin brother deeply embedded in the Colombian drug cartels was more than she wanted to deal with. She felt sorry for their mother too. But she had to think of herself now.