“I kept remembering what you’d said when I left,” she murmured. “About us being a team, a permanent team.”
I grimaced inwardly and looked at those deep, dark eyes.
Her dress, soft beige with a deep slit at the neck, outlined the round provocative beauty of her breasts.
“About what I said then, Marina,” I began. “I want to talk to you about that.”
“Not here, Nick,” she said, pressing her finger to my lips. “Let us go back to Casablanca, to my place. I would like it better there.”
I shrugged. Maybe it would be better that way. Maybe I could make up for what I was going to have to tell her. Nobody likes being a bastard, even when they know they’ve been one in a good cause.
We rode back to Casablanca in an army car the Moroccan government put at my disposal as a gesture of gratitude. When we reached her place she opened the door and spun into my arms, her eyes bright and glistening.
I wanted to make love to her, but that would only be compounding things, adding insult to injury. God, if only she weren’t so damned desirable.
We’d made small talk all the way back from Tangiers, as if both of us were avoiding the issue.
I knew I sure as hell was, but I also knew that I couldn’t put it off indefinitely.
“Marina,” I began. “About what I said in the mountains.”
I never got more than that out when the sharp sound of a door being kicked open made me spin around. I whirled to see Karminian coming out of the bedroom, disheveled, gaunt and red-eyed with a big .357 Magnum in his hand.
“I knew you’d come back sometime,” he said to Marina. “I didn’t expect you’d come back with him.”
“Anton,” she said, starting for him. “Oh, it’s good to see you. You’re alive, thank God.”
He laughed harshly. “Traitor... bitch,” he shot out at her. “Liar. Daughter of the devil. I live but no thanks to you.”
“Now, hold on, pal,” I said slowly, watching the gun in his hand stay trained on Marina’s abdomen. “She was trying to help you. In fact, I talked her into it.”
He swung the gun on me. “Then it is fitting you both die together,” he said. “I came here and waited to kill her. Now you can die with her.”
“Anton,” Marina said. “Please listen to me. I was only doing what was best for you. I wasn’t betraying you.”
He snarled at her again, an oath in Armenian, this time.
I sized it up quickly.
He’d flipped his wig. It probably hadn’t taken too much to do it. Based on what Marina had told me of their relationship, he had a weird approach to women anyway. It didn’t take much to convince him that she was a traitor, a creature of evil.
He was a strange one, as I’d told her once before, an introverted ascetic, and if I knew the type he was an egomaniac. They were always certain of their superiority because of their spiritual approach to life.
If I was going to stop that cannon in his hand from going off I’d have to reach him in that way.
“There’s no sense in trying to fool him, Marina,” I said. “He knows we lie. I think you’d better ask his forgiveness.”
Marina shot me a frowning glance but this time she caught my meaning and turned to Karminian.
“I’d get on my knees, Marina,” I said. “You need to beg for his forgiveness.”
Marina moved toward him and dropped to her knees, her head bowed contritely. “Can you forgive me, Anton?” she asked.
I watched him, waiting, as he looked down at her with the god-like severity of the just judging the unjust.
“I can forgive you, Marina,” he said. “But will the Lord?”
She raised her eyes and looked up at him. “Let me feel the touch of your hand on my head, Anton,” she said. She was doing a great job.
He half-smiled in merciful kindness. He shifted the Magnum to his left hand and reached out to touch her head. It was all the moment I needed.
I dived and grabbed his gun. The cannon went off in my ear, but I had him against the wall, pounding his head on the baseboard. I heard the clatter as the gun fell to the floor from his hand. I crossed a hard right, and he lay still.
Picking up the gun, I dialed the police, and we waited till they collected him. I told them to call the Army and turn him over to them. When they’d cleared out, Marina came over to me again, her arms encircling my neck.
After the way she’d handled Karminian, I felt even more indebted to her and more of a bastard. There would be no easy way but to plunge in.
“I’ve got to straighten something out with you,” I said. “About what I said about our being a permanent team.”
“I’ve not thought of anything else since you said it, Nick,” she smiled.
Dammit to hell, I groaned. Why do they always have to make it more difficult
“Look, honey,” I tried again. “It would be great, but it can’t work out. Not now, not for me. I said it to you then because I... well, I felt I had to. I didn’t mean it. I’m being honest about it, Marina. I didn’t mean it.”
She looked at me and pursed her lips. Suddenly she was laughing, a deep, throaty, rich laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
