Rules of Vengeance (32 page)

“What do you mean,
more
egg?” asked Graves, a hand in the doorway.

“So far we’ve failed twice. First, to protect a visiting dignitary against an attack. Second, to safeguard a sensitive government installation against theft. Nuclear secrets, no less. If a third failure leads to a nuclear accident, I’d think seriously about leaving the country. Permanently.”

   Sir Anthony Allam sat alone in his office listening to the ticking of his prize antique Asprey ormolu clock. The clock had belonged to his father, and his father before him, and so on all the way back to 1835, when Sir Robert Peel, modernizer of the London Metropolitan Police Force (hence the name bobbies), had awarded it to Detective Superintendent Aloysius Allam in recognition of his fifty years of service. Six generations later, the Allams had made a name for themselves as coppers on both sides of the Atlantic, and Sir Tony had the connections to prove it.

Feeling beneath his desk, he punched a button that indicated that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstance. Swiveling, he opened the sideboard that housed the director’s line, a phone equipped with the latest in scrambling technology. These days it was as likely that your own brood was listening in as the enemy. He consulted his directory, then dialed an overseas number connecting him to a certain rather undignified suburb of Washington, D.C.

“Hello, Tony,” said a rough American voice.

“Evening, Frank. How’s the world treating you?”

“Fair to middlin’,” said Frank Connor. “Yourself? It’s a little late over there, isn’t it?”

“You tell me. You didn’t really think you could come for a visit without my hearing about it, did you? Enjoying your stay so far?”

Connor grunted. “Food’s just as lousy as it was last time.”

“Not having any success finding her either, I gather.”

“Who?”

“You know who. Word is she went rogue on you.”

There was a long pause, followed by a sigh of capitulation. “These damn field types. We get some of ’em so wound up they have no choice but to self-destruct.”

“She looks rather composed to me,” said Allam. “We’ve got her on tape detonating the car bomb that tried for Igor Ivanov.”

“That was a terrible business,” said Connor, without sympathy.

“Not yours, I trust.”

“Come on, Tony. You know me better than that.”

Allam left that comment alone. “Any idea who she’s hired on with?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be eating that soggy bacon of yours. Ivanov’s got himself plenty of enemies. The man’s a regular butcher. The Monster of Grozny, they call him. He’s a freakin’ war criminal. Word is he likes to get his hands bloody, and I mean his own hands. They say he threw that last journalist out of the window himself. You know, the guy in St. Petersburg.”

“I heard the same thing. He’s a devil, that one.” Allam cleared his throat. “But here’s the rub—my people have themselves convinced that Emma Ransom wasn’t after Ivanov at all. They tell me that the blast was some kind of diversion to get into the offices of our British Nuclear Authority, the equivalent of your Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and make off with some laptop computers containing all kinds of sensitive codes. They believe that she may provoke some kind of incident or attack on a nuclear facility within forty-eight hours.”

“In England?”

“Possibly. Possibly abroad.”

“If there’s anyone who could pull it off, it’s her. You have your hands full. Me, I’m just looking to even up the scorecard.”

“You made quite a scene at the hospital this morning. Was Prudence Meadows another of your agents who was wound too tight, or was it her husband?”

“No comment.”

“Watch yourself, Frank. Remember, we’re only cousins.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Thank you,” said Allam earnestly. “Actually, this was meant to be a courtesy call. We received word that Jonathan Ransom is in Rome. It’s our belief he’s trying to find his wife. I can tell
he’s
not one of yours. Leaves a trail a mile long and half again as wide. I’m sending a team down there to work with the carabinieri and see if we can run him to ground. I’ve a feeling he knows more than he’s letting on. Anything you’d care to add?”

There was another lengthy pause, and Allam had the distinct impression that fat old Frank Connor was squirming in his chair. The mental picture made him very happy indeed.

“Are you free for lunch tomorrow?” asked Connor.

“I may be able to find an opening in my agenda.”

“Good,” said Connor. “Cinnamon Club. One p.m. Oh, and there’s just one thing…”

“Yes?” Allam listened closely as Connor went on a lengthy discourse. It was all he could do to keep his temper from getting the better of him. “Very well, then,” he said when Connor had finished. “I’ll see you at one. But Frank
—Frank?”

But there was no one on the other end of the line. Connor had already hung up.

   Jonathan leaned his shoulder against the church’s wooden door and was relieved to feel it open. Stepping inside, he paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the dim light. Candles flickered at posts around the building’s interior. Moonlight streamed through stained glass windows lining the nave. He advanced down the aisle and slid into a pew. He didn’t kneel, but laid his elbows on the bench in front of him. The church was still, the only sound that of his ragged breathing. Slowly calm settled over him. He was safe, if only for a few more minutes.

To his left was a chapel built into a side alcove. The altar was simple, adorned with a brocade cloth. A rough wooden crucifix hung on the wall behind it, with an elongated marble Christ.

Outside these church doors, the Italian police were combing the streets for Dr. Jonathan Ransom. He had to assume that they’d passed on news of his presence in Rome to their counterparts in London. At the same time they’d spread word to the local police forces in the vicinity. His capture would figure high on the priority list of every Italian policeman between Milan and Sicily.

Seated in the half-dark, Jonathan took stock of his position. He was not cut out for a life as a fugitive. He wasn’t one to jump down his “rabbit hole,” as Emma had called her escape hatch, and disappear from the world. Sooner or later he would be caught. The question was not if, but when. It was a matter of delaying the inevitable.

He unfolded the papers he’d taken from Luca Lazio’s office. It was too dark to read, but he knew the words. A nicked renal artery had resulted in Emma’s losing six pints of blood. She would have been delirious when she’d been transported to the hospital, perhaps even near death. In agony, drifting in and out of consciousness, she’d given her name as Lara. Not Eva Kruger, not Kathleen O’Hara, and not Emma Ransom—all well-known, practiced aliases—but
Lara
. And after the surgery, when asked for her last name, she’d refused it.

Jonathan could come up with only one reason why.

Lara was her real name. She had no alias to accompany it. Only the truth. And the truth she must keep hidden at all costs.

Jonathan rose and sidestepped to the center aisle. He spent a moment staring at the altar, gazing up to the ceiling and the oils depicting the Fall of man, the Resurrection of Jesus, and the Second Coming.

Turning, he made his way to the front door. A wind had sprung up outside, and somewhere it made its way through a crack in the church walls, sounding a high-pitched keening. He stopped to listen, hearing his own fear in the shrill wail. Suddenly the wind died, and he felt his uncertainty go with it.

He opened the door and went onto the street.

   Frank Connor paid off the taxi and presented himself to the doorman at the Diamond Club in Belgravia. “Tell Mr. Danko that Bill from California is here. I’ll be upstairs at the tables.”

Connor paid the exorbitant entrance fee and walked upstairs. The Diamond Club was a privately licensed casino catering to wealthy Eastern Europeans who had made the move to London in a big way over the past ten years. The club was divided into three floors. The ground floor offered an elegant bar and restaurant. The second floor housed the casino itself. And the third floor was reserved for private gaming and management.

Connor took a place at a blackjack table in the center of the room. At 1 a.m., action was lethargic, with no more than two dozen players scattered around the floor. Connor ordered a whisky and began to play cards. After three hands, he’d lost two hundred pounds. He signaled to the floor captain and informed him that he’d like to see Mr. Danko. The captain nodded politely and continued on his rounds. Ten minutes and another two hundred pounds to the worse, Connor still didn’t see Danko.

Enough
, he told himself. He was done being polite.

Connor ordered a second whisky loosened his tie, and began to really play. In ten minutes he was up a thousand pounds. In an hour he was up five thousand. He asked for a cigar, and when the captain returned with a Cohiba, Connor told him to tell Mr. Danko that unless he wanted to continue having a very unprofitable night, he’d better get his Bosnian butt down here faster than he could say Slobodan Milosević.

The captain left. To prove his point, Connor bet all or nothing on the next hand and drew an ace over king. Blackjack.

Danko showed up sixty seconds later. He was tall and slim, dark hair slicked back off his forehead, his Slavic stubble kept at an appropriate length, and he looked much too comfortable in a white dinner jacket.

“Hello, Frank. Long time.”

“Sit down.”

Danko dismissed the dealer and sat next to Connor. “What are you doing here?”

“I need your help.”

“Look around you. I’m out.”

Connor glanced around the casino before coming back to Danko. “I see the same guy. You know Rome. I need you to do a job for me there. Are your passports still in shape, or do you need me to run something up for you?”

Danko smiled, no longer so comfortable. “Frank, listen, I appreciate your interest. It’s a compliment, I know. But I’ve moved on. I’m forty. Too old for that kind of work. Come on. Give me a break.”

“No breaks tonight. Tonight is a break-free zone. Know what I mean? Now come on, get your stuff. You still keep that nifty rifle upstairs? Let’s go on up to your office and I can fill you in on the details. Job pays ten thousand dollars.”

“I make that much in a day here.” Danko leaned closer, so that the smell of his cologne was ripe in Connor’s nose. “I gave you seven years. Where’s the American citizenship you promised? Where’s the resettlement to California? You strung me along and then dumped me when you didn’t need me anymore.”

“I rescued your bony ass from an internment camp when you weighed ninety-six pounds. You owe me.”

“Thank you, Frank, but I think that I’ve paid you back.”

Connor considered this. “I can offer twenty thousand.”

“Frank, it’s time to go.”

Connor tried to pull Danko closer, but managed only to knock over his whisky and spill it onto Danko’s dapper jacket. “You may even know the target,” he continued, undeterred. “Emma Ransom. Remember her?”

“No, Frank. I don’t remember anybody or anything. That’s how you taught us.”

Danko lifted a hand, and two doormen were at the table a second later. “Take Mr. Connor downstairs,” he said. “Help him find a cab.”

“I’m still playing cards, you ungrateful Slavic piece of shit.”

“Time to go.”

Connor rose aggressively and one of the doormen grabbed him by the shoulders. Connor shook him off, then gathered his chips. Leaving, he flung a five-hundred-pound marker at Danko.

It missed.

   They were trouble. Emma knew it at a glance.

The crew of Muslim toughs had rounded the corner just ahead and were headed straight for her, already whistling and calling out names.

“Hey, girl, you better watch out,” one called out in Arabic. “Not safe for a Western girl all by herself.”

“Maybe she needs somebody to protect her,” added another. “A real man.”

“Bitch!” said the last, as if ending the argument.

There were six in all, and they wore the urban attire popular among disaffected French youth: baggy pants, oversized athletic jerseys, gold chains. There was nowhere to turn, nowhere to run, even if she wanted to. She fumed. She was not in the mood for a confrontation. Not tonight. Not when she had the black on. Not when even the friendliest smile might set her off, let alone a bunch of terrorists in training. She cursed the boys at headquarters. You decide to set up shop in a
quartier louche
, you have to expect that this kind of thing might happen.

The
banlieue
of Seine-Saint-Denis, in the northeastern outskirts of Paris, was a neighborhood of immigrants. A neighborhood where the poor came and went. A neighborhood that the police avoided. It was past two in the morning, but the streets still had plenty of life left in them. Neon lights advertised an all-night falafel shop. A cluster of men stood nearby, smoking. Keeping her eyes on the gang of toughs, Emma pulled her shoulder bag closer to her body and kept walking. The bag contained her work clothes, the camera, her purse, and, of course, her weapon.

The gang circled her, following her up the street.

“We’re talking to you, ma’am,” another said, this time in French. “You visiting, or did you move in? I’m sure we haven’t seen you before.”

Emma kept her pace, rounding a corner. She paid their catcalls no heed. She knew what it was like to be young and ungoverned and wild, with too much time on your hands and not enough money. “Excuse me,” she said, spotting her building, making to cross the street.

“Not just yet.” It was the leader, if there was one. A homely boy of nineteen or twenty, Algerian by the look of his hawk nose and shadowy eyes. He stood in front of her, blocking her path. He wore a tank top, and his arms were enormous. She spotted a tattoo of a dagger on his neck. A convict. That explained the arms. He’d had plenty of time to pump iron in the prison yard.