World without End

Chapter One Conway woke with a start. He lay on his stomach, sweating, the white bed sheet tangled around him like a vine and sticking to his bare skin, his heart pumping with a frantic energy, as if it were mustering all of its strength to ward off a familiar and powerful enemy.The window fan was on; cool air blew across his damp, fevered skin. Outside, the Texas sun had just started to rise, the stars still visible in the dark blue sky. Dull red and gold slivers of light glowed across the cream-colored bedroom walls of the condo. The clock on the nightstand read 4:30 a.m.Going back to sleep was useless. He had to get up in another hour and a half. He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling.The specifics of the dream didn't bother him. Over the past five years, the shooting had visited him dozens of times during odd moments -- and always in his sleep, the rational part of his mind replayed the specific events of that day in a desperate attempt to glean some hidden truth that, once discovered, would somehow prevent him from future harm. Fairytale bullshit. Life, he knew, didn't work that way. Shit happens. What you did was bottle the incident, give it a label, shelve it away, and ignore it. His experience at St. Anthony's Group Home had taught him that.What did bother him was the feeling the dream always left in its wake: an indescribable sensation of debilitating loneliness. The feeling was not new to him; it had been with him as long as he could remember, coming and going, varying in its intensity, and in his thirty-four years of life he could still not explain to himself or any friend or priest the cause of its origin."Bad dream?" Pasha asked, her English flawless. She lay in bed with her back facing him, her voice clear and strong, always strong."I'm good."Pasha rolled over onto her stomach and placed her head against the pillow, her thick, dirty-blond hair strewn about her face and shoulders. She wore white panties and one of his white tank top undershirts. Her normally pale skin had a slight tan from the hours spent under the harsh Texas sun and her long body was firm and strong from her training in sambo, the martial-arts system used to train Russia's Special Forces. Middle age had given her a slightly feminine softness that he found attractive. That didn't mean she wasn't dangerous. Conway had seen her go up against the big boys many times. Pasha always won."The thing with Armand was a fluke. An accident," Pasha said. "You survived it."Barely, a voice reminded him. But even now, in his semiawake state, he knew the dream had little to do with Armand and more to do with his irrational need to have the power to control and alter his surroundings."There's a lot riding on today," Conway said. "Two years of work. I want to make sure it goes down right. Make sure all the team members are in place and know what to do.""We're prepared, Stephen. You're not in this alone.""I realize that."Pasha waited for the rest of it. She stared at him, her blue eyes filled with that constant expression of wariness and guard, the vigilant hunter staring down the scope of a rifle searching for the next target.Conway looked away from her hard gaze. Her left ear was missing; what remained was a molten blob that, even when they were alone in the bedroom, she carefully hid behind her shoulder-length hair. No one knew what had caused the deformity. Her private life was as vaulted as her emotions.Pasha Romanov was nine years older than he -- had turned forty-three two days ago -- and in the five years they had worked together, and even when their professional relationship had turned private, she had rarely opened up about her life. It was as if all of her memories and their affixed emotions were stored in vials only to be examined in private.Conway propped himself up and rubbed the fatigue out of his face. "I'm going to go out for a run," he said. "Want to comMooney, Chris is the author of 'World without End', published 2002 under ISBN 9780671040642 and ISBN 0671040642.