Masquerade (54 page)

Who was Sarah Walker?

Her hand moved to her own mouth, to her own . . . beauty mark.

Before Sarah could touch Liz Sansborough's face, Gordon clamped a hand over Liz's mouth and the doctor injected her arm. Liz struggled briefly and collapsed, limp, unconscious. Gordon carried her back to the second limo and shoved her inside. The doctor followed.

Bremner nodded briskly to Sarah, and like a robot, she resumed Liz's path around the lead limo. Sarah climbed into the back seat next to the clown, the Carnivore. Bremner slammed the passenger door, stepped into the driver's seat, and slammed his door. He was sitting directly in front of Sarah.

The substitution had taken maybe fifteen seconds. Unseen by anyone.

Except Asher Flores and his little group.

Cursing, Asher lunged from the forest. The others followed. The first of Bremner's men turned in alarm. Asher smashed his pistol across the startled man's face and raced on shouting:

“Sarah! Sarah!”

In the limo she again touched her beauty mark.
I'm Sarah Walker
.

Then she dropped her hand, because she heard other words in her mind—the Man's orders:
“Remember, he will be sitting beside you. You must shoot him and only him. Is that clear?”
The Man hadn't said she had to kill a clown, so she was surprised to find a clown sitting in the seat beside her. The clown must be the man she was supposed to kill.

The purse was on her lap. As soon as the car moved forward, that was her signal. Not when the Man started the engine, but only when the car actually rolled. Then she was to shoot instantly. Use all the bullets in the gun to kill him. The man on her right. Kill him dead. The clown.

She liked the way the gun had felt in her hand.

The way the beauty mark had looked on the other woman's face.

Why was there another woman with her same beauty mark? She struggled to understand.
I'm Sarah Walker
.

The Man got in behind the steering wheel. He spoke to the female in the front seat next to him, and then he spoke to the clown in the back seat next to her. As the three talked, she looked out the darkened limousine window. She stared, saw . . .
I'm Sarah Walker
.

A man was out there—short black beard, black curly hair. A man with a gun, running toward the limousine and shouting . . . shouting . . . faint . . . “Sarah! . . . Sarah! . . . ” Other men and a woman—all older—came after him.

The gray-haired woman in the front seat rumbled, “Hughes, what the hell's going on!”

The clown demanded, “You'd better have an explanation, Bremner. Fast!”

I'm Sarah Walker
! The fog in her mind fought to form shapes, colors, memories.

The Man behind the steering wheel spoke to the woman and the clown, and then into a telephone, his mouth twisted in rage.

“It's Asher Flores and Jack O'Keefe . . . stop them . . . ”

Asher ran toward the lead limousine, where Sarah sat in the back seat next to the Carnivore. Bremner would've sealed the doors with the master lock on the steering wheel. How in hell was he going to break in? Christ, all the Languedoc limos had full armor plating and every anti-bomb device known to modern science. He'd need a nuclear warhead—

Another of Bremner's men ran toward him, firing as he came.

Asher squeezed off two shots.

The Langley agent flung backward to sprawl on the grass.

Two more men came from behind the limousines and converged on Asher. Asher fired.

Behind him, O'Keefe's people spread out, firing.

A bullet burned past Asher's cheek.

He dropped to his belly, making himself a smaller target. Three of Bremner's people were converging on him. Their shots chewed up the lawn. But the arrogant idiots were running straight at him, figuring their numbers would overwhelm him.

He picked off two, and then came the surprise bullet. It slammed across the side of his left arm. He was stunned just long enough to take a second bullet across his gun hand.

Jesus! He let out a volley, and the remaining man reeled and pitched over dead.

Behind him the engine to Bremner's limo purred to life.

They were about to drive off!

But some of Bremner's men remained. If he didn't take care of them first, he'd be dead before he could reach Sarah. Where in hell were they?

Inside the limousine, the Man's voice was grim, tense, as he explained rapidly to the woman and clown: “There's a secret
plot to kill you, Carnivore. Our men are taking care of it. No one can get to us in here. In a moment we'll be moving—”

The clown was staring at her.
I'm Sarah Walker
.

“Liz, what's wrong with you?” the clown asked.

Liz? Liz . . .
Sansborough
? Surgical bolts of lightning attacked her mind. She closed her eyes with the pain. Still, she made herself think the words:

I'm Sarah Walker. I'm Sarah Walker! I'M SARAH WALKER
!

Dizziness swept over her. And as if a raging storm had passed, her mind cleared. With fear and then elation, she remembered—

That bastard Gordon Taite.

The secret training camp high in the Colorado mountains.

Hughes Bremner's treachery. Sterling-O'Keefe. G
RANDEUR
!

Dear Asher—

Asher ignored the blood and pain of his hand, the blood running down from his upper arm. The last of the entertainers and partygoers had disappeared into the trees on the far side of the villa. Even the ponies and elephant had vanished.

It was ominously quiet. Jack O'Keefe and his people prowled, looking for more of Bremner's men.

Asher scrambled to improve his angle. There they were behind the second limo. Gordon and one other. Low to the ground, watchful, guarding the second limo in which the doctor and the anesthetized Liz Sansborough waited. Doing their job no matter what happened. Idiots!

“There they are!” Asher shouted and jumped up. O'Keefe's group raced toward the remaining men while Asher focused on one goal: Get Sarah!

The lead limousine rolled forward.

Sarah told the clown, “I'm Sarah Walker.” Shocked, she glanced down as her hand, holding the gun inside the cloth purse, rose anyway.

“You're Sarah Walker?” A gun appeared in the clown's hand. “You bastard, Bremner! Where's Liz? Where's my daughter!”

Sarah tried to fight off the uncontrollable need to kill the clown, to force her finger off the trigger, to force her hand down, but still she gripped the Colt, preparing to fire—

Somewhere, vague understanding penetrated: If she killed the clown, she'd let G
RANDEUR
succeed!

“It's all right,” the Man said sharply and glanced back at the clown, his aristocratic face intent, sincere. “In a few minutes we'll be safely in the Languedoc. You
and
Liz.”

Sarah noticed the clown's hands, in skin-tight, white clown gloves, gripping the pistol. She frowned. The hands were narrow, slender hands.

Delicate hands.

Sarah lunged and yanked off the clown's wig.

A woman's light-brown hair tumbled down to the clown's shoulders. Angry shock spread across the clown-woman's face, and she flung Sarah back across the seat.

But Sarah was supposed to kill a man,
not a woman
! With that realization, the irresistible need programmed into her brain evaporated. The gun inside her purse stopped moving up.

She inhaled sharply. She had no need to kill anyone.

But then she saw Hughes Bremner's hand move on the steering wheel. She saw a flicker of gold. A gold cigarette lighter. She'd seen it in the infirmary—

No!

What?

Not a cigarette lighter. Her
neck
!

She reached up, felt her skin. Something hard. Something . . . the doctor . . . had implanted!

In a split second Sarah fired through the handbag.

She fired again. And again.

Skin, bone, and hair erupted from the back of the Mustang chief's head. A chunk of his forehead hit the windshield and splattered down to the dashboard. His body pitched forward and fell, grotesquely twisted, against the steering wheel.

In the limousine there was total silence. A vacuum of silence like a vast emptiness filled with the acrid stench of gunfire as Arlene Debo and the Carnivore stared at Sarah and the bloody corpse of Hughes Bremner.

Chapter 63

Asher Flores shot out the lock of the limousine and ripped open the door.

In the front seat Arlene Debo was staring blankly at Hughes Bremner's corpse. Blood drenched her face and stylish business suit.

In the back seat Sarah held the big Colt .45 limp on her lap, the burned remains of her handbag beside her. Asher studied her, afraid. Had her brain—?

“Sarah?”

“I finally killed him. That asshole Bremner.” She gazed up. “My mind kept telling me I was Sarah Walker, but knowing it wasn't enough to stop me from killing the clown. The Carnivore. But then I saw her hands. The Carnivore's a woman.” She looked quickly around.

The seat beside her was empty.

“Asher! She's got to be Liz's mother. Melanie Sansborough! We forgot all about her. Where is she? We have to—”

A voice spoke behind Asher: “I'm here, Sarah.”

Melanie Sansborough held her Walther against the cheek of a trembling Dr. Allan Levine, who carried a drugged Liz Sansborough in his arms. Melanie's light-brown hair hung loose around her face, her red clown nose was gone, and her white grease paint was partially rubbed away. She had the lovely, delicate features Sarah remembered from the photos in the Sansborough family album, now hardened by time and experience.

Sarah went to her aunt, suddenly understanding. “You were
both
the Carnivore,” she said. “Uncle Hal
and
you!”

“Of course. Partners. It was good business.”

“But what about all this? The circus people? The ‘guests' at the party?”

“Longtime associates. They put on a good show, didn't they? The police will never find them, and neither will the Languedoc.”

The party had been a con. “But why—?”

“Hal and I decided to live apart until the actual coming-in. When you finally make the decision to ask for asylum, you take no chances. So they've been my cover for months. Off and on for years before that.” Melanie Sansborough's eyes narrowed on Allan Levine, who was still holding the unconscious Liz but edging away toward the second limousine. “Forget it, Doctor! One more step, and it will be my pleasure to kill you!”

Allan Levine's pasty skull-face seemed to collapse in on itself. His feeble attempt at escape ended abruptly. His big feet stopped, paralyzed.

Sarah had to ask: “Did Uncle Hal really die?”

Melanie nodded. “Some hoodlums stole the MG and dumped his body. The police haven't found it yet, but there was so much blood in the driver's seat, no one could've survived—”

Melanie stopped and stared. Arlene Debo jerked out of her trance in the bloody front seat. She jumped out of the big vehicle in horror. Back in the trees, an engine roared to life.

Sarah looked at Asher.

“Jack O'Keefe and his
compadres
,” he said in a low voice and shrugged. Sarah looked around, could see none of them. They'd finished their job and vanished. She wondered why they hadn't come forward to take credit for their work.

“JesusfuckingChrist.” Arlene Debo stared at them all, and then back at Hughes Bremner's slumped body. “What happened here? Has the whole world gone mad? Who are you? What is—?”

Melanie Sansborough's voice turned flinty. The voice of the Carnivore. “You were here to see the Carnivore come in, the hands-on DCI. You've seen that. You also saw an attempt to kill the Carnivore by the man you trusted to bring him in. Why,
I don't know. But I expect my niece and that young man with the beard and blood all over him can tell us.”

Arlene Debo glowered at Sarah and Asher. “Who
are
you two? What the hell was Hughes doing?
Why
, for God's sake?” Her face darkened. “Is the French Prime Minister going to be assassinated tomorrow or not? Start talking!”

Sarah spoke rapidly, explaining who she was and the story of M
ASQUERADE
—the plastic surgery, the switched identities, and the secret board of Sterling-O'Keefe. Asher added the details of Bremner's murders and his betrayal of Langley.

“You've got to reach the French government immediately,” Sarah insisted. “Tell our President to contact the French President, because—” She explained the byzantine plot of G
RANDEUR
as briefly as she could. “With MK-U
LTRA
and Je Suis Chez Moi exposed, I doubt the Prime Minister and the others will go through with tomorrow's devaluation, but we'd better take no chances. Please believe me: You
must
alert the French President and the National Assembly at once!”

Melanie Sansborough said, “I guarantee you I know nothing about any assassination attempt on Vincent Vauban. A Bremner lie, I expect.”

“If I could suggest, Chief, maybe you should get on the radio and alert everyone,” Asher told the DCI. “It's only a matter of time before the French cops show up anyway. This is a secluded estate, but someone's got to have heard all the gunfire.”

Arlene Debo shook her head, uncertain. “How do I know any of this is true?”

“Because I'm here,” Melanie Sansborough said, “and you're still alive. Do you want me or not?”

The DCI pursed her lips. “I'll talk to the President.” Then she brushed at the blood on her expensive gray suit and glared at Asher. “You! Agent Flores, is it? All right, Flores, get on the pipe to the Languedoc. Blue code urgent. Tell them to prepare a priority patch through to Washington. Do it!”

“You'll have to use the one in the rear limo,” Sarah said. “I shot out the phone here.”