She looked back at Ronsard, to keep his attention on her instead of on John. "I would introduce myself, but it's better if I don't. I'd like to put a proposition to you, Louis-one that would benefit both of us."
"In what way?"
She smiled again. "The CIA is very interested in ... reaching an agreement with you. We don't want to put you out of business. You could be very valuable to us, and vice versa. You have access to a lot of very interesting information-and we're willing to pay you well for it."
"So would other governments," he said, his eyes still cold.
Niema kept an eye on John as well as Ronsard, willing him not to spoil the setup. "Not as much as we can. And there's an added bonus."
"Such as?"
“A heart."
The softly spoken words fell into a silence that seemed complete. John started, then halted himself. Ronsard's face twisted with hatred. "You dare," he whispered. "You dare bargain with my daughter's life?"
"I'm offering the services of the United States government in finding a heart for her. Those are services you can't match, no matter how much money you have. Even a new heart might not save her, but at least she'll have a chance to hold on until other cures can be found."
He hung there, a father's anguish on his face. "Done," he said roughly, no haggling, no jockeying for position. His love for Laure was genuine and absolute. He would do anything, even sell his soul to the devil, to save her. Working with the CIA was nothing in comparison. He lowered his weapon and nodded toward John. "What about him?"
"Mr. Temple?" Niema shrugged as she lowered her own weapon. It was a risk, but one she felt she had to take to make this agreement work. "He's ... a bonus, so to speak. I wasn't expecting to have his aid in the job, but since he was there, and so good at it, I let him do it." She had to keep John's cover, she thought. His identity as Joseph Temple couldn't be questioned.
John bent down and scooped up his pistol. Niema couldn't read his expression. His face was still pale, his eyes as dead as she had ever seen them. He started toward Ronsard.
"Temple!" she said sharply, just as a sound drew her attention to the right.
Two of Ronsard's men came around the corner. Their gazes locked immediately on John; he was the prime target of their hunt. They saw the pistol in his hand, saw him moving toward Ronsard. Niema knew, in a nanosecond of stark vision, what was going to happen. She saw their weapons train on him. He was momentarily too focused on Ronsard to react as quickly as he normally would have.
She didn't hear herself scream, a hoarse sound of rage and terror. She didn't know she was moving, didn't feel her hand holding the pistol as it began to rise. All she could hear was her heartbeat, slow and ponderous, as if it pumped molasses instead of blood. All she knew was-not again. She couldn't watch him die. She couldn't.
There was a distant roar. A blue haze of gun smoke. The stench of cordite burning her nostrils. The buck of the weapon in her hand as she fired, and kept firing. A crushing force hit her, knocked her down. She tried to stagger to her feet, but her legs wouldn't work. She fired again.
Someone else was shooting, she thought. There was a deeper roar . . . wasn't there? John. Yes, John was shooting. Good. He was still alive. . . .
The lights seemed to go out, though maybe not. She wasn't certain. There was a lot of formless noise that gradually reshaped itself into words. Something was tugging at her, and it hurt worse than anything she'd ever felt in her life, pain so sharp and all-consuming she almost couldn't breathe.
"-damn you, don't you die on me," John was raging as he tore at her clothes. "Do you hear? Don't you god damn die on me."
John rarely swore, she thought, fighting through the pain; he must be really upset. What on earth had happened?
She was hurt. She remembered now, remembered that crushing blow that knocked her down. Something had hit her.
Shot. She'd been shot. So this was what it felt like. It was worse than she had ever imagined.
"Don't die," John was snarling as he pressed down hard on her side.
She wet her lips, and managed to say, "I might not, if you'll hurry and get help."
His head jerked around and he stared at her. His pupils were pinpoints of shock, his face white and strained. "Just hold on," he said roughly. "I'll stop the bleeding." He looked beyond her, and his expression was savage. "You'd better use all the influence you have and get the best doctors in Europe, Ronsard," he said in a low, guttural tone, "because if she dies, I'll fillet you into fish bait."
Washington, D.C., three weeks later
Niema carefully got out of bed and made her way over to the lone chair in the hospital room. Her legs were steadier, she was walking more every day now, though "more" in this case meant a few minutes longer, not any great distance. She had come to hate that bed, though, and was spending as much time as she could in the chair. Sitting in a chair made her feel less like an invalid.
The last IV drip had come out that morning. She was scheduled to be dismissed from the hospital the next day. She would complete her recovery at home; Frank Vinay had visited and said it had been arranged for her to have help at home until she was strong enough to manage by herself again.
Being home again would be nice, she thought. Excitement was one thing, but a woman needed peace and quiet when she was recovering from a gunshot wound. Too much of the past three weeks was a blur, at best, or a huge blank forever lost from her memory. She vaguely remembered being in intensive care in some hospital in France. Louis Ronsard might have been there. He had held her hand once, she thought.