Free Two Graves by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

Our entire life lies ahead of us. We can do with it what we like.”
    She smiled, glanced skyward. “Do with it what we like… Promise on the moonrise?”
    Gazing in mock solemnity at the amber moon, he put a playful hand across his breast. “Cross my heart.”
    He stood in the middle of that vast, empty, brutal, and alien desert. The darkness crept deeper across his vision, as if he were looking down a dark tunnel, the end of which was moving farther and farther away. The shovel slipped from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the stony soil. With a last, half-audible sigh, he sank to his knees and then—after a swaying pause—fell across the grave of his dead wife.





1
    A LBAN LORIMER ENTERED THE LOBBY OF THE MARLBOROUGH Grand Hotel in New York City, his pale eyes hungrily taking in the polished acres of red Italian marble, the discreet lighting, the whispering wall of water cascading into a pool of blooming lotus flowers, the vast hushed space milling with people.
    He paused in the center of the atrium, energized by the early-morning bustle around him. He focused on random individuals and followed their trajectories across, around, in, and out of the lobby. Many were heading toward the line at the Starbucks kiosk, from which wafted the heady scent of brew and bean.
    New York City…
    His smooth hand stroked the lapel of his wool pin-striped suit, his thin but powerful fingers enjoying the give and texture of the expensive wool. He had never worn such a suit before. His shoes were also of the finest quality, and he had groomed himself with care to look his very best, as if he were about to have the interview of his life. And it
was
an interview of sorts: today was an important day, a red-letter day—rather hastily put together and arranged, of course, but essential nonetheless. He breathed deeply. How wonderful it was, what a lovely feeling of security, to be well dressed, with money in your pocket, standing in a hotel lobby in the greatest city in the world. The only thing that marred his appearance was the small white bandage covering his left earlobe, but that of course could not be helped.
    Coffee? Maybe later.
    With a final smoothing down of his suit front, Alban strode across the lobby marble toward the banks of elevators, enteredone, and pressed the button for the fourteenth floor. He glanced at the brand-new Breitling watch he had been given, which he was so pleased with: seven thirty-one AM .
    There were others in the elevator, most carrying enormous cups of coffee. Alban wondered at the size of these coffee cups. People in New York seemed to drink large amounts of coffee. He himself preferred coffee in what his people called the Italian style, strong, short, and black. He was also surprised and even mildly shocked that so many tourists to New York City did not dress properly. Even here, in this beautiful and expensive hotel just off Fifth Avenue, they dressed as if they were picking up their children at the playground or going for a jog, in warm-up suits, running shoes, sweatshirts, or jeans. But few of them could actually be contemplating a run, given their physical condition, many of the men with hanging guts and the women slab-sided and heavily made up. He had never seen so many people in poor physical condition. Then again, he was forgetting: this was the common herd.
    He exited at the fourteenth floor, took a left, and walked briskly down the hall, taking each dogleg at an easy pace until he reached the far end of the corridor, where an emergency door led to a staircase. He turned and looked back down the hall. There were eight room doors on the right, eight on the left. In front of about half of them, a wake-up newspaper had been folded and placed. Some guests took the
Times
, others the
Journal
, and a few
USA Today
.
    He waited, hands clasped in front, all his senses now on alert. He was utterly still. He knew that, from the time he had entered the hotel to this point, his image had been