The Eternity Project

59

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS



The surface of Lake Michigan churned up white crested rollers that were whipped away by the gusting wind as Ethan jogged near the shore along an old beaten track that led to Rocky Ledge Park.

It had taken a couple of weeks to settle back into things. Lopez had managed to get back in contact with her family in Mexico and send them some much-needed cash after her long absence. Ethan had visited his parents and sister, and had been able to inform Natalie that she no longer needed to worry about CIA assassins knocking at, or indeed kicking down, her door.

Ethan didn’t know what had happened to Mr. Wilson, but, this time, he felt sure that the remorseless agent would no longer be a CIA-supported asset. It was a fact that, despite his relentless nature, Wilson was a loyal servant of the CIA, and if he had been called off and retired then he would not have resisted. It wasn’t a personal thing for people like him, merely duty. Although Ethan despised the man with all of his heart, he knew that he did not have to worry about the agent becoming embittered and hunting him down.


He turned onto Rocky Ledge Park, maintaining an easy stride, going for distance rather than speed. It was a measure of his cautious nature that, since working for the Defense Intelligence Agency, he still wore earphones when he ran but he did not play any music. Just in case.

It was that caution that allowed him to hear the footfalls rapidly approaching from behind. A sprinter, moving fast, closing on him.

Ethan let his left foot hit the sandy earth as normal, but, as his right struck, he turned it sideways and let his leg fold at the knee like a giant coiled spring, ready to hurl himself back at his attacker and catch them unawares.

The jogger jerked left and a hand skimmed the top of his head as it flew past, a bright smile and a plume of blonde ponytailed hair flashing by.

‘Not bad.’

Joanna Defoe kept moving as Ethan started running again and moved alongside her.

‘Nice of you to show up,’ he said between breaths. ‘But you could have just waited for me out here. I thought for a moment that you’d high-tailed it out of all of this for good.’

Joanna didn’t reply. Ethan looked at her for a few moments before speaking.

‘Nothing to say for yourself ?’

Joanna shook her head.

They ran north onto Lake Shore Drive, maintaining the same steady pace in perfect formation until Ethan’s legs started to ache and his breathing started to rasp in his throat. Joanna accelerated ahead slightly and turned, running up a shallow hill that ended overlooking the shore.

Ethan ran up behind her and stopped, pressing his hands onto his knees and recovering his breath. He looked up at her and saw a faint smile on her lips.

‘Just pretending that the last five years hadn’t happened,’ she said finally.

Ethan stood upright and looked out over the lake. ‘Yeah, me too I guess. But it did happen.’

Joanna nodded but said nothing more, drinking from a water bottle she carried in one hand.

‘You know that you’re in the clear, don’t you?’ Ethan said. ‘You don’t have to run anymore.’

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘Just haven’t got used to the idea yet, is all.’

Ethan watched her for a few long seconds, wondering if they would still have been together if she hadn’t been abducted in the middle of one of the most dangerous cities on earth. If they’d finally have got married, had kids, settled down. Somehow, he knew that whatever they had once shared was long gone, that too much had happened since for either of them ever to revisit the past, because it would never be the same again.

‘Where will you go?’ he asked her.

Joanna finally turned to face him. He could see in her expression that she was surprised by his directness, but that she was also as resigned to the situation as he was.

‘Not Chicago,’ she replied, ‘too many memories.’

‘That’s why I came back here.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ she said. ‘I need to leave it all behind, start again. It’s just too painful right now to think about everything those bastards took from me, all those years that we could have been . . .’ She cut herself off and swiped a strand of blonde hair away from her face and forced a smile onto her features. ‘And you’ve got Nicola now, anyway. I have the suspicion she’d be a bit of a handful, if I got in her way.’

Ethan smiled, nodded. ‘She has a way with people.’

Joanna looked briefly out across the lake, and then back at Ethan. ‘It was good to see you again. I’m glad you found your way, despite everything.’

‘You, too.’ Ethan nodded. ‘And don’t go hungry or anything, okay? You know where we all are if things get tough.’

Joanna smirked. ‘Tougher than four years in a Gazan prison cell?’

‘You know what I mean.’

Ethan reached into his pocket. He pulled out the roll of 8mm film that Jarvis had given him and held it out to her.

‘What’s this?’ she asked.

‘Footage,’ Ethan replied, ‘shot by a team from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron attached to the CIA. It shows them tampering with the water supply to your father’s apartment, injecting LSD into it. Proof enough for a trial and insurance against any kind of hit. My guess is that the Director of the CIA, William Steel, will be made aware that this evidence exists. I saw on the television a few nights ago that he had decided to retire from his role. I think that we both know what that means.’

Joanna stared down at the roll in her hand, speechless. She looked at Ethan in wonderment.

‘How the hell did you get hold of this?’ she asked.

‘Honestly?’ Ethan replied airily. ‘You know, it must be my age, but I just can’t recall who gave it to me.’

Joanna smiled and looked again at the roll of film, before she tucked it into a pocket and turned to face Ethan.

‘Take care of yourself, okay?’ she said.

‘What I’m best at,’ Ethan replied. ‘You, too.’

Joanna leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Then she turned and, without another word, she jogged away. Within a few minutes, she had vanished ghost-like into the city, as though she had never existed, still a distant memory in Ethan’s mind.

Ethan jogged back to his apartment and took a long, hot shower, running through his mind everything that had happened in the past week. He felt strangely detached from events, as though so much had happened after so long a wait that his mind wasn’t prepared to accept it. He had searched for Joanna for years and then suddenly she had reappeared. Yet, within days, she was gone again. The burden of regret was definitely lifted from his shoulders and the bitterness had dissolved into warmth that permeated his soul, but in the wake of her final departure was the feeling that tomorrow was an unknown. With his life’s goal now resolved and having officially parted company with the DIA, he realized that he didn’t know what to do next.

Ethan drove to the office he rented with Lopez, pulled up outside and sat silently in his car, looking at the building. The afternoon sun was setting to the west and he could see that the office light was on. Lopez was still there, probably calling every police department in the state to catch up on the names of bail-runners sought by the courts.

Ethan got out of the car and walked across to the door, punched in his access code and entered the building. Lopez was sitting behind her desk, gripping her phone tightly and jabbing a finger in the air while talking to the unfortunate person on the other end of the line.

‘. . . you’ll pay our fees on time or you’ll wake up tomorrow morning to find me standing over you with a goddamned bat in my hand, you feel me? You’ve got twelve hours.’ She slammed the phone back into its cradle. ‘Have a nice day,’ she added laconically as she looked up at Ethan. ‘Well?’

Ethan eased into the chair behind his desk. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

‘Joanna?’

‘We crossed paths,’ he replied. ‘For the last time, I think.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lopez said, and Ethan could tell that she meant it.

‘It’s been a long time coming. It feels okay.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Good.’

Ethan looked at her quizzically as she began shuffling through the mountain of paperwork on her desk. ‘Good?’

‘Good.’ Lopez nodded, still smiling. ‘You and I have got months of work to catch up on, and you were never any good while half your brain was focused on Joanna. At least now, I’ll have your full attention.’


‘You’ll have it?’

‘Damned right,’ she insisted. ‘No more Jarvis, no more DIA and no more Joanna Default – as I’ve come to think of her.’

‘Joanna Default,’ Ethan echoed. ‘That’s nice.’

‘You know what I mean.’ Lopez flashed a bright smile as she tossed him a thick wad of folders, each bearing the name of a down-and-out bail-runner loose somewhere in Illinois. ‘Your cases. And I’ll need you to book a reservation for us both for dinner this evening.’

Ethan gaped at her. ‘Dinner? We’ve never gone to dinner before.’

‘That’s right,’ she agreed, ‘we’ve always had carry-out, eaten at our desks, or grabbed morsels while running all over the goddamned country for the DIA. I’ve had it with fast food, so you’re taking me out to dinner. Somewhere nice. I like Mexican, if that helps. Any questions?’

There was a self-satisfied little smile coloring her features as he stared at her.

‘Sure, I guess.’

‘Thank you, kind sir.’

‘And we’re going to get on with all this, just like that?’

‘Just like that.’

‘And you don’t want to talk about going back home to Mexico, or how we’re going to survive without the extra work from the DIA and pay our rents, or . . .?’

‘We’ll survive, Ethan,’ she said. ‘That’s what people like us do. In fact, without Jarvis sending us to near-certain death every few months, we’ll probably thrive, know what I mean?’

Ethan sighed. ‘Yeah, figures.’

‘Good,’ Lopez replied brightly. ‘I’ll get coffee and donuts. You figure out which one of these losers we’re going after next and we’ll get on the case. Any further questions?’

Ethan almost laughed, but he shook his head and flipped a mock salute. ‘No, ma’am.’

Lopez grabbed her keys and sauntered toward the office door. He called after her as she walked out.

‘Hey, you sure this is what you want?’

Lopez looked back over her shoulder at him. The smile was still there, but it seemed calmer, more content than before.

‘Sure I am. You?’

Ethan thought only for a moment longer. A normal life, one that neither of them had been able to enjoy for years. No-brainer. ‘Yeah, definitely.’

Lopez hurried away as Ethan pulled out his cellphone and scrolled down through his contacts menu. He found the entries for Doug Jarvis and Joanna Defoe and deleted them.





ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS



Throughout the writing of these books I have owed an immense debt of gratitude to my literary agent Luigi Bonomi and his team at LBA, who discovered me as a writer and helped me become a successfully published author, in doing so changing my life beyond recognition and helping a long-held dream come true; to the publishing team at Simon & Schuster who all work so hard to develop and promote the series; and to my family and friends who all champion my work so enthusiastically. I also would like to mention the fans of the books who so often contact me with kind words and who follow my journey as an author through my website, Twitter and Facebook pages. Without readers all authors would be redundant and every one of you makes this author’s work worthwhile.

In addition, for much of the revelatory detail in this novel I am indebted to Dr Penny Sartori. An immensely experienced Intensive Care nurse, Penny was awarded a PhD for her extensive research into near-death experiences. In 2008, her academic monograph “The Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients: A Five Year Clinical Study” was published. It was from this reference that I obtained many of the genuine near-death experiences referred to by characters within this novel, and Dr Sartori’s detailed study remains a unique and remarkable investigation into a phenomenon that fascinates all who encounter it.