Masquerade (57 page)

Again, he read.

Once more, you've lied to me. You said you'd come in, and now you haven't. I want to see you. Come in, Papa.

It was signed, “Love, Liz.”

Hal Sansborough raised his chin and bellowed, “Sarah!”

The sound reverberated across the dry Sicilian slope.

The wily cold-war assassin turned, shaded his eyes with the letter Sarah had faked. “I know you're here! Show yourself!”

He was alone, arrogant and sure on the mountainside. Beside him stood his chair and side table. Behind him spread his elegant pink stone villa and the grove of olive trees.

As Sarah and Asher left the trees and walked toward him, the first explosion jolted the ground like an earthquake. A brown-gray cloud erupted behind the villa.

“What the hell was that?” Asher said.

A helicopter appeared from over the mountain to their left. It was their backup. They ran toward Hal Sansborough. Men and women in camouflage melted out from the olive trees and converged from all sides on the killer. This time they'd get him.

“It's over, Hal,” Sarah said as they approached. “No fake blood this time. A systemic depressor to make your heartbeat
and pulse so faint only a doctor's instruments could detect them. No more tricks of a master. The Carnivore is going to come in this time. It's over.”

The assassin smiled. “Stay back from the villa unless you plan to come with me.” And Sarah saw in his eyes what Liz had described. It was as if she were peering down a dark, cold well of evil.

Two explosions erupted on either side of the villa.

“The villa's sinking!” Asher's gaze swept the shifting land.

“We're above old subterranean caves.” Hal Sansborough picked up his tea, finished it. “Does Liz know you're here?”

“No,” Sarah told him, anxiously watching the trembling land. “We used a computer scan to fake her signature.”

“Does the laser-jet ink contain some kind of homing device?”

“One of R&D's new toys,” Asher admitted.

Hal Sansborough lifted his head, savoring the sea air and his memories. “The explosions are automatic now. Set off with my ‘radio.' No way you or I can stop them.” He gave no glance to the sinking villa behind him, nor to the wary troops whose circle was tightening. “The world's changed too much. It's all fucking technology and disposable governments.”

And then two more blasts thundered on either side of Sarah and Asher. Shock waves knocked them flat. The Carnivore dropped to his knees. The troops fell, struggled up shouting, and scrambled back. The helicopter closed in, blowing up a tornado of dry Sicilian soil.

“Uncle Hal!” Sarah crawled to him.

The land beneath them suddenly dropped a half foot.

“Go away!” he yelled. “I can't live like you!”

Asher grabbed her around the waist and pulled. The earth split and plunged. Hal Sansborough heaved himself up onto his chair. His gaze was clear. His short crew cut glistened salt-and-pepper in the sunlight.

“Hal, you bastard!” she shouted. “You've lost!”

He laughed as if he'd just heard the biggest joke in the world, and he closed his eyes. He mouthed, “No! I've won!”

Trees toppled. Behind him the villa sank from view, and a
mushroom cloud of dust and smoke rolled across the slope. Sarah and Asher jumped up and ran, leaping widening cracks and tilting slabs of hardpan. Sarah glanced back just in time to see Hal Sansborough, unconscious and slumped in his chair, drop with startling suddenness into the bowels of the earth.

At last Sarah and Asher stopped on a distant ridge. The ground that had supported the Carnivore's lovely villa had collapsed into a giant crater. Dust hung above, caught the sun, and sparkled. She watched the sight, awed and sad. The first part of her plan had worked: She'd guessed correctly that Red Jack O'Keefe had maintained contact with the still-active Hal Sansborough, but she hadn't been certain until he'd received her faked letter and forwarded it on through various drops and it had reached the Carnivore's last lair.

But—dammit!—she'd wanted
him
, not his death.

“Did you see that packet he put into his tea?” Asher asked, his face gentle.

“Probably some kind of poison.”

“I agree. But if the mop-up crew can't find his body, we'll never know. Or whether he's really dead.”

Sarah gazed across the forbidding, windswept land. “That's probably the way he wanted it.”

Asher took her hand, and they turned away. She looked up at the blue sky. Energy coursed through her, and hope. If she didn't have complete resolution, she now knew she had something far more important—Asher and life.

Read on for an excerpt from
the next book by Gayle Lynds

T
HE
C
OIL

Coming soon in hardcover
from St. Martin's Press

Chapter 1

May 2003
Brussels, Belgium

In one of his trademark conservative suits, Gino Malko strolled through the rue St-Catherine area in the heart of the lower city, enjoying the cool sunlight of the northern spring as he swung his special ebony cane with the silver handle. From time to time he threw back his head, shut his eyes, and let the sun warm his face, somehow avoiding the other walkers as if he had built-in radar.

Eventually, he turned into the café Le Cerf Agile and sat at an outdoor table covered in white lace.

The eager waiter bustled over. “Good morning again,
monsieur
, another fine day, eh?” he asked in English. “Your usual?”

“Thank you, Ruud,” Malko said, smiling, playing his role.

Malko was a heavy tipper, so the waiter returned quickly with café-au-lait and a Belgian pastry. Malko nodded his appreciation, poured from the two silver pitchers, stirred, and bit into the pastry. He leaned back at his ease to watch the passing throng of locals, NATO personnel, businessmen, tourists, and EU staff members. It was early for tourists, but the fine spring weather had attracted a swarm.

He was on his second pastry when he spotted the target. He casually picked up his cane and moved naturally into the
stream of pedestrians. Apparently the density of the crowd forced him to hold the cane upright.

In the normal course of things, he bumped into one or two people, including his target, expressed his horrified regrets each time, and finally, as if the crush were too much, turned back toward the café.

A woman screamed. Everyone looked in her direction. Near her, a tall, slender man with a Mediterranean complexion had collapsed on the sidewalk, his hand clutching his chest.

As Brussels's thick traffic surged past, people converged. They shouted in French, Flemish, and English:

“Give him air!”

“Call the paramedics!”

“Can anyone administer CPR?”

“I'm a doctor, stand aside!”

Now back at his table at the café, Malko sipped coffee and chewed his pastry and watched as the doctor dove into the riveted throng. They whispered into each other's ears and peered down. As Malko finished his pastry and dusted his fingers, a shiver of horror swept around the circle.

Almost immediately, a man in shirt sleeves fought his way out, dialing a cell. His face was pink with excitement. “There's been a tragedy on the street in the rue St-Catherine district!” he reported in French. “Heart attack, a doctor just said so. What? Yes, he's dead. Important? Hold your hat: It's EU Competition Commissioner Franco Peri! Get it on the air at once. Yes, the lead. Pull whatever else you have off!”

Gino Malko smiled, left euros on the lace-covered table, and headed off, cane swinging. He would be back in his hotel in five minutes. Checked out in ten. And in fifteen, taxiing to the airport.

July 2003
The University of California
Santa Barbara, California

It was after nine o'clock in the morning, and Campbell Hall was crammed with students sitting in row after row, rising
toward the back of the amphitheater. Liz Sansborough studied them as she gave her last lecture of the summer term. There was something about their indifferent, interested, scrubbed, dirty, sleepy, alert faces that radiated hope.

They reminded her of her years at Cambridge, when she was their age and searching for a clue, too. She would probably continue to search until she keeled over from work and the occasional but necessary martini. The fact that they showed up class after class made her optimistic that they would not quit the hunt either.

“Marx claimed violence was the midwife of history,” she told them. “But fascism wasn't created by an aristocracy any more than communism was by a peasantry. Both were the result of political ideologues, from Trotsky and Lenin to Hitler and Mussolini, and each political system was born in violence. They and their followers resorted to ‘overkill' out of ideological intoxication—a substitute religion, if you will—to create a new world and a new human. In the cases of Stalin and Hitler, they used terrorism and violence not only against other armies but against civilians, including their own, just as dictators do today. Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, the Taliban, and the al-Qaeda network are modern examples.” She paused to let the summary sink in, then smiled. “All right, now it's your turn. Where do you think all of this fits in with what we've been talking about in terms of the psychology of violence?”

She watched their feet shuffle and their gazes lower. The hands of the usual suspects shot up, but she wanted someone else to show some mettle.

“Come on, brave-hearted souls,” she coaxed. “Who wants to take a wild stab?” A few more hands rose. “All right, you look as if you'll have something interesting to say.” She pointed a finger. There was no seating chart for such a large lecture class, and although she recognized the twentysomething, she was unsure of her name.

The young woman had a sheet of pale blonde hair that hung straight, masking half her face. She tossed her head to free her eyes and mouth, perhaps even to breathe. She said earnestly, “Adult aggression and violence can stem from early childhood
experience, Professor Sansborough, but that's not always the complete explanation.”

“Go on.”

“In fact, that explanation could be construed as too easy,” she said, gaining confidence. “A cheap shot. ‘Good' people sometimes get seduced into violence by situational forces. They . . . they get caught up in a violent moment, and their real selves sort of get lost.” She stopped, groping for more.

Liz nodded. “In other words, their personal identities get suspended in a kind of moral disengagement. They use justification and interpretation to legitimatize their actions. Ergo, the ‘herd mentality' and ‘the power of the mob' and how an average person can wind up doing something despicable and violent and evil that they'll never forget and may never be able to forgive themselves for. . . .”

For Liz, the rest of the lecture sped past. When it was over, she was feeling wired. She gathered her notes and stuffed them into her briefcase. She was not supposed to have taught today. In fact, she should be in Paris right now, taking some vacation time with Sarah and Asher. But in the end, she had been unable to make herself leave this final lecture of the summer session to her assistant. It was too important. In it, she summarized everything her students should have learned, and if they paid attention and went back over their notes, each had a very good chance of not only doing well on the test but of actually learning the material.

The lights dimmed in response to California's latest energy worries, and the auditorium emptied quickly. As they often did, a few stayed to walk with her across the grassy campus to her office.

“But shouldn't the ‘good' person resist the power of the mob?” one asked.

Tall eucalyptus trees swayed in the ocean breeze. The air smelled fresh, of sea salt and sunshine. Liz breathed deeply, enjoying the summery morning, enjoying her life.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “But with that, we're getting into ethics.”

“It's not an easy thing to do,” another said quietly. “To resist, I mean.”

“Right,” said a third. “When the surf's up, sometimes you've just gotta dive in.”

“And sometimes not,” Liz reminded them. She liked their questions. They were thinking, which was the major point of an education, as far as she was concerned. “Ask yourselves what it takes to say no when everyone else is insisting yes. Once you start to consider how you'd like to behave, you start to build up a savings account against the times when you face difficult decisions, and you will face them.”

“I'm really glad you didn't get sucked completely into the TV thing,” the youth who liked surfing said. “I mean, it's great you're still teaching.”

“I can't imagine I'll ever quit,” she assured him. “Now that we've got a professional producer and crew for the series, I have more time for you.”

They smiled and peppered her with questions about the new episodes on the Cold War that would be aired.

“You'll have to be patient,” she told them. “I'm sworn to secrecy.”

They liked that and laughed. When the small group reached the psychology building, she shooed them on their way. One young man was particularly sweet. He had a crush on her and was often among the group who stayed late.

Tongue-tied, he managed to mumble, “Great lecture, Dr. Sansborough,” before he shuffled off.

She pushed in through the door and climbed to the third floor. The building was faded pink concrete, utilitarian, without pretense, which she liked. The corridors bustled with staff and students. When she arrived at her office, Kirk Tedesco was inside, leaning back in her chair, his big Rockports propped up on her desk.

He was reading
TV Guide
. He lowered it and grinned. “Hi, babe. How was the howling mob?”

Her office was cluttered with books and papers. Kirk was the calm in the center of the research storm. She smiled in greeting. “Sharp as little tacks.” She closed the door and dropped her briefcase onto the floor next to her gym bag.