"You're tired." Nicky tugs on a dark grey Burberry half-trenchcoat, tying the belt into a loose loop.
They are in a private guest chamber. Nicky has showered and is dressed in clothes her mother brought.
Heidi nods. "My body has no idea what time it is." She's seated on a Louis XVI bergère with pale cream satin fabric, exhaustion in the droop of her shoulders, her body in a half-slump against the chair's round back.
For four days since Nicky hatched her plan, Heidi's been moving across the world, unearthing limited partnerships and studying ownership stakes to secure what she needed.
Sterisyn Morlanta is a research and development group – by its very nature a loss center. Its chief function is to deliver new innovations at great expense in money, time, and labor. If it succeeds with a product that revolutionizes or disintermediates an existing market, it could potentially pay back all those time and financial investments – usually in millions of dollars. Sterisyn Morlanta comprises scientists, labs, plants, ideas. But its results – the intellectual property – are patented, produced, and sold by Candent Health. reQuiel and Supressolyn, two drugs in phase three clinical testing, are expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. It's this money – and more like it from previously commercialized drugs – that fuel the secret research and manufacture of the chems so prized and needed by NRAG's Beta programs.
The Candent Group, LLC, is a private company. It is not traded on any exchange, so it answers to no shareholders, and is not required to make public any of its financials or non-proprietary information. However, any money it makes has to be poured back into operations to fund new growth and development, and the trade-off for its owners and principals is less profit. But say the company takes private equity money – where a group of limited partners buys an ownership stake in the company for a price at an agreed upon valuation. Say the limited partners are a foreign, highly secretive private equity group – for a company that prizes confidentiality, this is an ideal circumstance. Candent's owners get an influx of money for their operations and their bank accounts, and the limited partners get an ownership stake in a company that produces lucrative pharma.
What happens, though, when all the limited partners in the private equity group unexpectedly and suddenly agree to sell their own stakes in the firm? It's stupidly expensive, but all the firm's partners can strike private transactions with the buyer, and once enough have sold their stakes, the firm re-elects new management.
Or one manager.
And that new owner, of course, gets everything in that firm's portfolio.
"I can't believe the partners agreed to sell."
Heidi smiles. "Everyone has a price, Nicolette. Even billionaires."
"Do I want to know how much this cost you?" asks Nicky.
"A lot more than the Sweptail joyride you took." Heidi's comment is dry, but the tone affectionate.
Nicky is chagrined. "I was seventeen."
"It was a $13 million dollar, hand-built Rolls Royce," comes Heidi's rejoinder.
Nicky hazards a guess. "And this was at least–"
"This was worth every penny," Heidi interrupts. "Every. Penny."
Nicky drops her head, says nothing as she struggles to swallow the lump in her throat. When she looks up at her mother, her eyes are wet. "You are the best mother, ever."
Heidi's expression wavers, and the older woman's face crumples as tears gather in her chocolate brown eyes. Heidi stretches out, grabs Nicky's hand, squeezing. "I'm a mother. That's all."
"You got lucky that Byer bought your act," murmurs Alexandra as she crosses the room for the full length mirror.
"I never said I believed he had Mummy," says Nicky. "He inferred that."
"Next time cuz, a little more time please?"
"You say that a lot."
"You need reminding a lot." Alex settles a large, wide-brimmed hat on her head and studies herself in the mirror. "Now what, cuz?"
"I'm going to Normandy. I have some things to take care of and then…" she shakes her head. "Then I guess I'm free."
"Where do you want to be?" asks Alex.
Nicky looks down, afraid to hurt her family. But: "I need to go away for a little bit."
Heidi inhales sharply. Alex sighs. Neither protests.
"We'll be here when you get back," Heidi offers reassuringly.
Nicky feels the sting of tears. "Thank you, Mummy." She grasps Alex's shoulder. "Cuz."
Alex puts on large, round sunglasses. "I think I'll pass for you."
Heidi stands, exhales and squares her shoulders. Nicky engulfs her mother in a tight hug. Heidi's arms wrap around her daughter, and she buries her face in Nicky's hair with a half-sob.
"I'm coming back, Mummy, I promise, I promise," Nicky says urgently.
"I know Nicky," Heidi whispers.
Nicky opens her arm to welcome Alex, and the three of them bow their heads together.
"All right then," Alex says briskly. "Let's get this show going."
A flurry of activity at the embassy's front doors draws the attention of the gathered news media who begin shouting questions as Heidi Parish exits, followed by a chic blond dressed in Céline prêt-à-porter. The high-collar, white trapeze coat swings loosely as she jams her hands into the side pockets, head down, her face covered by wide, round sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat that hides her face. Neither she nor Heidi nor any of the people behind them address the cameras or reporters.
A sleek black car drives enters the gates and pulls up to the front of the embassy's steps. In lieu of the expected Mercedes-Benz favored by the discreetly wealthy, Heidi's choice of conveyance is a stylish Maserati Quattroporte S-class sports sedan. A driver leaps out to open the door for his passengers. The young blond slides gracefully into the car without a word to the journalists, turning her face away from the tinted window.
As Heidi's car pulls away to a barrage of flash lights, a nondescript Audi exits from the embassy and turns right on Avénue Gabriel, the passenger in the back wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap. At Avénue de Marigny, the driver turns left, then makes another left onto the Champs-Elysées. He veers right toward Quai des Tuileries, which continues on to Quai François Mitterrand. Seven minutes later they pull up alongside the Louvre and the passenger exits.
Nicky tightens the belt around her waist, and pulls a cap low. She does not address the driver, simply murmuring her thanks as she walks to the Pont des Arts, which links the Louvre's Square with the Institut de France.
It's mid-afternoon, and at this hour, there are a few people milling about on the bridge. Some are tourists taking pictures, others are simply taking in the scenery.
It takes Nicky a minute before she sees Bourne, who is two-thirds of the way across the bridge. The collar of his wool peacoat is up, partially covering his face, the fisherman's cap pulled low on his head. He's making himself small, non-descript.
She finds him staring quizzically at the grate. There are a few locks on the railing, some engraved with names. Nestled amidst the metal padlocks is a small white length of cording, two parallel strands tied into interlocking overhand knots.
He looks up when she approaches.
Before she can say anything, he's closed the distance between them, pulling her to him, his arms tight, his face turned into her hair.
"Nicky," he exhales, his relief palpable.
The embrace is so startling, his response so unexpected, that Nicky freezes, arms hanging by her side. She hates the warmth that floods through her body, fills her heart; she doesn't want to yearn and hope, because where he is concerned, there can only be false advertising.
She pushes at him, takes a step back.
"You should have told me what you were planning." His expression is unreadable but his eyes are hard. I am so goddamned tired of people using me.
Nicky fights the impulse to apologize. "I thought you were going to try and save me," Nicky murmurs.
"You told me not to." There's a quiet undertone that obeying her mandate had been difficult for him. She tries not to read too much into it.
"It's done," she tells him. She holds up her smart phone so he can see the screen. "Wikileaks just published a document tying Hirsch to the theft of the two million that they pinned on you."
"And your mother now owns the chems that fuel the Beta programs."
"And my mother has Byer by the balls." She nods. "We're free."
"For now," he says, voicing that particular.
They both know Byer will eventually find a way to hunt them again.
"For now," Nicky acknowledges. "But I'll take it."
"What now?"
Nicky's exhalation ends on a bitter half-laugh. "I guess we make a claim on whatever kind of life we can for as long as it lasts."
For a moment, they both silently contemplate what that life might look like.
Bourne reaches out to touch the intertwined cording. "Lover's Knot," he says. "It's decorative, not functional."
Nicky tilts her head quizzically.
"When I was on the boat in Italy…I could tie fishermen's knots but I couldn't remember my own name." Nicky waits for him to continue. Instead he shakes his head. "You said you know what happened to me on Wombosi's boat."
Nicky nods. "It's a long story and this isn't the place to tell it. I'm heading out of the city tonight. Can you meet me in Normandy tomorrow?"
"Why don't I ride with you?"
Nicky is unsettled. She hadn't expected him to come with her. It's about three hours from Paris to the coast and she doesn't know if she can be in a confined space with him for that long. But she finds herself nodding her assent.
Then
"What are you doing?" Nicky's eyes crinkle as she watches David. He's on his knees, sliding two equal cords around the metal grate of the Pont des Arts. With quick, practiced motions he begins with a loop and bend, intertwining the two overhand knots.
"Lover's Knot," he proclaims.
"Maybe you should do a Surgeon's Knot so it's more secure?" Nicky suggests. They both grew up sailing around Massachusetts, near their respective boarding schools. They're both proficient with knots.
David scoffs as he finishes tightening the loop. He stands, pulls Nicky toward him. "Stop editorializing my grand romantic gesture. Me and you. Forever."
Nicky giggles, doesn't stop laughing even as David presses his lips to hers. When he pulls back, David brushes a stray lock of hair away from her face.
"It'll stay, Nicky."
Nicky wants to believe him.
Now
It did stay David, Nicky thinks. But you didn't.