When she glanced behind her, she saw the Mercedes only half a block away, police flashers behind it. Suddenly to her left there was an opening in the iron fence and she pushed in through curious onlookers, went down stone steps, and realized where she was.
Cismigiu Gardens. The same entrance O'Rourke had brought her to that May day so many eternities ago.
Kate moved deeper into the gardens, taking the narrow sidewalks and lesstraveled lanes. From the streets beyond there came the sound of sirens, receding screams, and at least one more shot. Kate realized that her leg was bleeding more seriously than she had thought; she found a stone bench set behind a hedge and away from the walks and used the last of her Kleenex to clean the wound as well as possible. Her skin was gashed from her knee to just above her ankle. Kate used a cotton handkerchief and a Tampax from her duffel bag as an improvised field dressing.
The bleeding contained for the moment, she sat there, aching and disoriented. A cold wind came up and sent leaves spiraling down around her. The flowerbeds were unkempt, the flowers lifeless after heavy frosts. Heavy footfalls echoed from the main sidewalk just beyond a thick hedge.
Kate began to weep then, unable to hold the burning down in her throat any longer. She lowered her face into her hands and just wept.
Kate did not know how long she sat there cryingit might have been a few minutes or half an hourbut she was suddenly aware that it was raining. Hurried footsteps sounded again on the unseen sidewalk as searchers or parkBoers ran for cover. Kate simply sat there and lifted her face to the cold rain. Leaves dropped around her like wet paper as the rain turned to sleet. She lowered her face and let the icy pellets pound her head and shoulders.
Kate realized that she was laughing softly. As the sudden, icy rain let up, she raised her face again to the gray sky and said softly, “Do your worst, you bitch.” Misfortune had always been a female entity to Kate. But then so had the idea of God.
The sleet stopped at the same time as Kate's laughter. She shiveredher cheap coat was soaked throughbut ignored the cold as she focused the problemsolving part of her mind on the situation. The tears had helpedemptying her, calming herand she approached the situation as if it were a difficult piece of hematological diagnosis.
She was an illegal alien in a hostile country where almost unimaginable resources were arrayed against her and the chances of finding Joshua had dwindled almost to zero. Even if she found the child, she had been able to put together no plan except to run with him for the border or the American Embassy. Meanwhile she was separated from both of her friends in the country, an American priest and a Romanian medical student, and sure of neither as a true friend. What if O'Rourke did tip the Securitate and the strigoi? What if Lucian were the strigoi equivalent of a double agent, setting her up to be used and then discarded?
Kate shook her head. She did not have enough data to assess either man's loyalty, although O'Rourke's disappearance just before the fire that destroyed their Jvirus source seemed incriminating. It was all a moot point unless she could join forces with one or both of them again.
Do I really want to see them again?
Yes, she realized. Not just because she was cold, wet, scared, and unable to speak Romanian, but because she had complex feelings for each of them.
Dead with that later. What's the next step?
It seemed that if the strigoi were actually on their tail to the point of staking out the apartment and burning the medical school lab, then there was no way that she could follow Radu Fortuna again. Security would be heightened. Whatever part of the strigoi Investiture Ceremony that was going on tonight would go on without her.
Where to find Lucian or O'Rourke?
All of the places she could think of to reestablish contact with Lucian would also be obvious to the strigoi: the medical school, District Hospital One, his or his parents' old apartments. Kate shook her head.
O'Rourke. We never talked about a meeting place other than the basement apartment, but where . . . not the Francis can center here in Bucharest. O'Rourke said that it is watched by the government as a matter of course. He always calls his contacts there and arranges a meeting through some kind of code. Where, then?
Kate sat in silence for another twenty seconds, then rose and walked briskly toward the far end of the park, avoiding groups of people, shielding her face when she passed others hurrying for cover.
O'Rourke was sitting on the park bench near the lagoon where they had sat and talked in May. He was alone, his heavy wool coat collar turned up, but he glanced up when she stopped near the children's playground and his smile was visible from thirty feet away.
“I was up before dawn and off to meet the head of the Franciscan monastery in Bucharest,” said O'Rourke. “I said I'd meet you at the medical school at nine. Didn't you see my note?”
“No,” said Kate. “There was no note.” They were crossing the bridge over the narrow channel between park lagoons.
“I left one,” said O'Rourke. “Maybe Lucian picked it up and didn't tell you about it.”
“Why would he do that?”
The priest made a gesture with his hands. “I don't know., But then, there's a lot we don't know about Lucian, isn't there?”
And about you, thought Kate, but said nothing.
“Anyway, I made the arrangement with Father Stoicescu to deliver the Jvirus sample to the American Embassy later this morning. But when I got to the medical school, there were the police and firemen .... I called Stoicescu and canceled the meeting, then went back to the apartment, but the police were there. I could see men going into the building and there were expensive automobiles up and down the street.”
“The Securitate drive Mercedes,” said Kate and explained about the insanity of the last hours.
O'Rourke shook his head. “I couldn't think of what to do except come to the park and hope you would think of it as a rendezvous point.”
“I almost didn't,” said Kate. They had reached one of the west entrances to the park. Kate hesitated and pulled back into the trees. “It's not safe out there.”
The priest glanced toward the street. “I know. If the Securitate know where we were staying, then the strigoi must know that we're in the country . . . and why.”
“How?” said Kate. Her hands folded into fists.
O'Rourke shrugged. “Possibly Lucian. Maybe the Gypsies talked. Maybe some other loose end . . .”
“Your phone calls to the Franciscans?” said Kate.
“I doubt that. We speak in Latin, never use real names, and arrange the meetings through an old code we developed when I was working with the orphanages here. “ He scratched his beard. “But it's always possible . . .”
“And really doesn't matter now,” said Kate. “I just don't see what we can do next. If Lucian was captured“
“Did you see him captured?”
“No, but“
“If he was arrested by the police or Securitate, there's nothing we can do,” said O'Rourke. “And if he escaped . . . which is likely . . . then he has an infinitely better chance than we do in Bucharest. It's his city. And there's his alleged Order of the Dragon.”
“Don't make fun of it,” said Kate.
“I'm not.” Footsteps were approaching behind a hedge and O'Rourke pulled Kate farther back among the dripping trees. Two men in workers' clothes walked past quickly without glancing beyond the hedge. “I'm not making fun of it, but I don't think it's a very efficient organization. It couldn't even tell Lucian where the next night of the Investiture Ceremony is going to be held.”
Kate held back her anger. “Well, we didn't do any better.”
“I did,” said O'Rourke. “Come on.” He took Kate's arm and led her out through the gate and along the street to a parked motorcycle covered with a plastic tarp. The motorcycle had a sidecar and looked ancient to Kate, like something out of an old World War II movie. O'Rourke tugged off the plastic, folded it, and tucked it under the low seat of the sidecar. “Get in.”