“Dad!” Quentin cried suddenly, pointing toward the bow. “Dolphins!”
Daniel put the helm on autopilot and followed his son to the foredeck. He saw the pod right away. They were swimming alongside the sailboat, their gray bodies glistening in the clear water. They took turns in the lead, one jumping, then another. Occasionally, they would dive below the surface, only to reappear seconds later. The dolphins stayed with them for almost a mile, never straying more than twenty yards from the hull. When at last they broke away, they swam in a lazy circle, fins in the air.
“Look at that!” Quentin exclaimed. “They’re waving farewell!”
“It’s a good omen,” Daniel said, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder.
Together, they waved back.
Paul
Cape Town, South Africa
November 7, 2011
The party was too formal for Paul Derrick’s taste, the people too self-absorbed to really be interesting. He sipped the wine—an excellent red from Stellenbosch—and listened to conversations around him, noting the timbre of laughter that was genuine and that which was feigned. He stood by a window that overlooked the terrace and the lights of Clifton Beach and minded his own business, except when his sister, Megan, saw fit to introduce him to someone. He wasn’t antisocial—far from it. By profession he was a student of human beings, a kind of behavioral scientist, a connoisseur of the mannerisms that reveal hidden feeling—the place where truth resides.
He watched a woman in her late twenties chatting with a large man in a pinstripe suit. He was a film producer and a windbag, a bloviator accustomed to having an audience. She was a pretty girl, in the fresh-faced, Drew Barrymore sort of way, but she had dressed like a vamp in a red shift as slinky as lingerie. By the way she touched the man’s arm and laughed at his jokes, it was obvious what she was offering. But she was also self-conscious, tucking her brown hair over her ear, fingering her necklace, shifting her weight between heels, and straightening her dress. She was playing the seduction card to the hilt, but it was a false note in her personality. Derrick felt sorry for her. The man he held in contempt.
He turned toward a large group clustered around Simon Lewis, a celebrated British-born photographer and Megan’s husband. He had always liked Simon. He was a person who wore his success lightly and had an accurate estimation of his own worth, which is to say he understood the world would go on with barely a hiccup if he suddenly stopped breathing. He was witty, ironic, and self-deprecating, and his photos were actually quite good. But Derrick’s admiration didn’t rise to the level of respect. For all his sangfroid, Simon was a hedonist who refused to be domesticated, even after tying the knot. His womanizing was something Megan had come to accept, or so she claimed. But Derrick knew otherwise. The wound in her heart was real. Simon would never be hers alone.
“Paul! There you are,” Megan said, approaching him through the crowd, a young woman in tow. “I want you to meet Anna Kuijers. Anna, this is my brother, Paul. He plays the shy part, but he’s actually quite charming.”
“Afrikaans?” Derrick asked Anna, giving his sister a look only she could interpret.
“How did you know?” Anna asked dryly. She was tall—nearly six feet—with a friendly face, blonde hair, and blue eyes a shade lighter than her sapphire dress. “Pleasure.”
“All mine,” Derrick replied.
“Enjoy your conversation,” Megan said cheerily. “I just saw someone I need to greet.” In seconds, she was across the room again.
“She throws the best parties in Cape Town,” Anna said. “To our national shame.”
“I’m sure it has nothing to do with her famous husband.”
“No, I mean it. She’s the most hospitable person I know. She’s always going out of her way for people. But I suppose you know that.”
Derrick was intrigued. “That’s the most unpretentious thing I’ve heard all evening.”
Anna smiled wryly. “It’s the curse of the artistic crowd. We like to talk about ourselves.” She paused. “You’re twins. I thought you’d look more alike.”
“We played with a wishbone in the womb. She came out with the bigger half.”
Anna laughed. “I imagine you’ve heard that before.”
“A few times.”
She looked out at the night. “I’d love some fresh air. Care to join me?”
“By all means,” he said and followed her onto the terrace. “Is the sky always so clear here?” he asked, leaning against a stone railing that overlooked the sweep of the sea. “The stars are so bright.”
“Not in the winter. You came at the right time.”
“Too bad I’m only here for a week.”
Anna’s eyes widened. “That’s not much of a holiday.”
Derrick nodded. “It’s an occupational hazard. I don’t get away very often.”
“Megan told me you’re with the FBI.”
His expression turned coy. “Do I look like a special agent?”
Anna examined him thoughtfully, taking in his charcoal suit, white shirt, green tie, and blonde surfer’s hair. “Not really.”
“Then Megan did a good job. We spent all afternoon at the mall.”
Anna laughed. “You work in Washington?”
“I work in a lot of places. But I have an office near D.C.”
“You’re a hostage negotiator,” she said. “I’m fascinated.”
“You make it sound sexy. Most of the time I don’t even carry a gun.”
Anna shook her head. “I disagree. There are too many guns in the world.”
He gave her a frank look. “Now you have my attention. What do you do?”
“I’m a publicist. I work with authors.”
“Which means you make them look better than they actually are.”
Anna smiled. “Like your sister did?”
“Touché,” he said with a laugh. He studied her in the dim light. She was an attractive woman—intelligent, insightful, and comfortable in her own skin. But it didn’t matter; he wasn’t interested. He hadn’t been in a relationship in a decade, ever since his divorce. Love was a game that women played and men lost. And sex without love was complicated and disappointing. His job was his mistress. What the Bureau demanded he could give without reservation, unlike Kelly, who had left enough poison in his heart to paralyze someone less acquainted with pain.
“This is good wine,” he said, redirecting the conversation toward something less personal.
“I know the winemaker,” she replied. “I’ll tell him you said that.”
“You publicists get around.”
“We have a lot of occasions to drink.” She looked him in the eye. “The winery isn’t far away. They have an excellent lunch menu.”
And there it was: the proposition. He had to play this carefully. He didn’t want to offend her. “Sounds tempting. I’ll mention it to Megan. We’re taking the Garden Route this weekend.”
“I can take you if you like,” Anna replied, bringing her intentions fully into the light.
“That’s nice of you,” he said, delivering the blow softly. “If only I had more time.”
Anna stepped back gracefully. “Of course. Well, if you’re ever bored, Megan has my number.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He held up his wine glass. “Cheers.”
“Nice chatting,” she replied and left him with a smile.
When she was gone, Derrick turned toward the sea and listened to the distant sound of the surf. A gentle wind blew off the water and stirred the trees around the villa. The property was owned by one of Simon’s many friends—a fund manager in London. He allowed Simon to use it as a base for his photographic excursions in Africa, and Megan joined him when her trial calendar permitted. She had invited Derrick on a whim the last time she had visited his apartment in D.C.
“What kind of life is this?” she had asked, running her fingers over the top of his outsized plasma television and holding up a year’s worth of dust. “This place is a dump. The only things that are worth anything are your entertainment system and your piano.”
As if on cue, he sat down at his Yamaha baby grand and banged out a jazzy rendition of “What a Wonderful World” sans vocals—he’d never been able to sing.
“You just proved my point, Ray Charles.” She put her hands on his shoulders. “Look, I believe in what you’re doing as much as you do. But you need something permanent to come back to. You can’t be living here in twenty years.”
He had accepted her offer of a getaway, both because he loved her more than anyone else and because the Bureau owed him more vacation days than he could count. But Cape Town, for all its splendor, had done nothing to assuage his restlessness. It was like a drug, the adrenaline he had been living on since September 11, 2001. As a special agent with the FBI’s New York-based extraterritorial squad, he had worked the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and developed an interest in Islamic radicalism. Over the next two years, he had turned that interest into an expertise, taking courses on Middle East studies at the City College of New York. With the help of his SSA—supervisory special agent—he had also cross-trained as a negotiator, attending the two-week course at the FBI Academy taught by the Crisis Negotiation Unit, or CNU, the most respected team of high-stakes negotiators in the world. After distinguishing himself in the training, he had come to the attention of the CNU’s director during an exercise in which he played the role of lead negotiator.
Then al-Qaeda attacked the homeland and America went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. No one quite expected that the wars would trigger a new wave of international kidnappings. But they did. As Western contractors flooded into the conflict zones, the insurgents saw opportunity and began to stage abductions, extort ransoms, and conduct brutal public killings. In June of 2004, soon after the jihadist cleric Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded Nick Berg, an American businessman, the director of the CNU had brought Derrick onboard as a full-time negotiator. Two weeks later, he had been deployed to Baghdad as an advisor to U.S. and coalition troops.
For the past seven years, he had been a human pinball, bouncing from one hostage crisis to the next and racking up over a million airline miles. In his down time, he taught negotiation skills to police agencies around the world and did research on hostage scenarios. He had a gift, his bosses said. He could see through people—especially people in distress. They made him the number one international hostage negotiator in the Bureau. It was the job he had coveted since watching the Waco tragedy unfold in college. But it came with a steep price. He had no life outside of it.
“Hey, good looking,” Megan said, appearing beside him. “I’m disappointed. I was sure you and Anna would hit it off.”
“We did,” he replied, smiling at her. She was an elegant woman with raven-dark hair, hazel eyes, and a face that smiled easily. In the right light, she looked like Vera Farmiga. “You know me well.”
“But you’re not interested.” She said it simply, without judgment.
“My job isn’t conducive to a relationship.”
She shrugged. “Neither is mine, but Simon and I make it work.”
You work while Simon takes his photography students to bed
, he thought but didn’t say. At the age of forty, Megan Derrick was one of the most respected criminal defense attorneys in Washington. After graduating second in her class from Virginia Law School, she had clerked on the U.S. Supreme Court before joining a boutique litigation practice run by a former Solicitor General that specialized in high-profile criminal cases and constitutional appeals.
“I’d be interested in you, if you weren’t already spoken for,” he said, giving her a sly look.
She laughed in a deep, authentic way. “Do you remember when we were kids? We used to joke about marrying each other. We’d had a nine-month courtship in utero and were best friends. What better foundation for a relationship?”
“Now we live in the same city and go months without seeing each other.”
She smiled. “I don’t need to see you to know what you’re thinking.”
“A telepathic lawyer,” he said with mirth in his eyes. “That’s about as terrifying as a clairvoyant car salesman.” He paused. “So what am I thinking?”
She eyed him seriously. “You really want to know?”
“I know already.” It was a game they had played many times, but they never tired of it.
“Okay.” She stared out at the night sea. “You’re still thinking about Anna. Maybe not actively, but in the back of your mind some part of you wishes you were free enough to enjoy her.” She looked into his eyes. “You are, you know? I’ve driven the Garden Route before.”
As usual, she was spot on, but Derrick pretended otherwise. He shook his head. “I was thinking about my last assignment.”
“Nonsense,” she retorted. “I know it’s hard to believe, but not every woman is like Kelly.”
The name of his ex-wife landed like a spear in his gut. He covered his emotions with jest. “It’s decided then. You should leave Simon and we should elope.”
“I mean it. Your music and your film collection will never warm your bed.”
He let out a slow breath. “I’ve missed you, Meg. You’re the only person in the world who understands me.”
She gave him a hug. “I’ll always be here for you. But the Bureau shouldn’t have your soul.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said and held her tight.