Rules of Vengeance (39 page)

“Location couldn’t be better,” said Connor as he scooted his chair back from the table to afford his girth some extra room. He had dressed for the occasion in his best suit, a three-year-old gray worsted that was missing only one button. His shirt, however, was brand-new. Pale blue and fashioned from the finest cotton-poly blend.

“You can still smell the cordite or whatever it is they use these days,” said Sir Anthony Allam. “One Victoria is just around the corner. Place is still a mess. Blew out all the windows for three blocks. Luckily, the bombers used a shaped charge, or it would be much worse. I suppose we should thank them for that.”

“Yeah, maybe you ought to throw them a parade,” said Connor, his pouchy eyes peering over the top of his menu.

The waiter took their orders. Gin and tonic to drink and a Madras chicken curry for Allam. Hot-hot. Connor ordered the same without gusto.

“I appreciate your time, Tony, short notice and all.”

Allam smiled politely. “My pleasure, though I have to admit this particular spot wouldn’t have been my first choice. Too many eyes and ears.”

“Exactly.” Connor looked to his right and left, and appeared dissatisfied with his selection. “I don’t see any unfriendly faces.”

“Don’t worry, they’re there.” Allam folded his hands on the table. He was a busy man, and his ironclad gaze made it clear that it was time to get down to brass tacks.

Connor bent his head closer. “So Emma’s been giving you a tough time.”

“You might say that.”

Connor offered a doctored version of what had taken place in the Swiss Alps five months earlier.

“And this is the first you’ve heard of her since?” asked Allam.

“We’ve been keeping tabs on the husband, hoping that he might lead us to her, but until four days ago he was doing his save-the-world thing down in Africa. Regular Albert Schweitzer.”

“Are you saying that you haven’t any knowledge about her actions in all that time?” Allam pressed.

“Not exactly,” said Connor, with reluctance.

Allam pounced on the show of hesitation. “Oh?”

“Like I said, we’d been keeping tabs on her husband. A few months back he called one of her old work numbers. All lovesick. Had to see her.” Connor shrugged. “He’s an amateur. What do you expect? Anyway, we traced the call to Rome and got a team in place in record time. She got the better of us. Left our guy dead. Since then she’s been off the grid.”

“Until now.”

Connor winced. “Yeah, until now.”

“How could you let her get so out of control?” demanded Allam, his voice rising. “It reeks of irresponsibility.”

“I told you, she went rogue. What she’s doing now is her own business. I don’t have the slightest clue who she’s working for.”

“Whoever it is, they wanted to kill Igor Ivanov and they did it on my turf. I’m surprised you have the gall to ask for our help. As far as we’re concerned, the attack has your fingerprints all over it.”

“What?” retorted Connor, drink and anger flushing his cheeks. “You think this was an American operation? Have you lost your mind?”

“Look at yourself, Frank. You’re out of control. You’re so blinded by your desire for retribution that you’re putting yourself and your organization at risk. First you fly into my country without having the courtesy to notify me, then you make an arse out of yourself harassing Prudence Meadows in the hospital, and last night you dredge up that monster Danko and try to blackmail him into doing your dirty work. Word was all over town before dawn. The way you’re acting, I wouldn’t put anything past you. I think this is the right moment for us to formally cut the ties between our two organizations. From what I hear, Division isn’t long for this world anyway.”

Connor fought to find the right words, blinking madly. “Are you saying you won’t help us find her?”

“I see you’ve finally learned how to speak English.”

Connor chucked his napkin to the floor and stood abruptly, toppling his chair to the ground. “I should have known better than to ask a favor of our ‘cousins,’” he said, wagging a finger in Allam’s face for good measure. “Fuckin’ limeys! You couldn’t catch a tick if it was burrowed in your ass!”

“Good riddance,” shouted Allam. He stayed absolutely still as Frank Connor stormed from the restaurant. It took all his discipline to remain seated while every head in the restaurant turned and stared at him.

“Don’t worry, Frank,” he said to himself. “The unfriendly faces are here all right. You just can’t see them.”

   The plane was a Cirrus SR22, a single-engine turboprop capable of seating six with a top speed of 200 knots and a range of 900 kilometers. Mikhail Borzoi, chairman and sole owner of Rusalum, Russia’s largest aluminum producer, majority shareholder of six of the country’s ten largest commercial banks, single largest public patron of the Kirov Ballet (private patron to three of the company’s leading dancers), and first counselor to the president, completed his preflight check. The pitot tube was free and clear. The stall flap was functioning nicely. The oil level was more than adequate, and the gas tank was filled to the brim.

“We’re good to go,” he called to his copilot before climbing into the cockpit and strapping himself into the left-hand seat.

Borzoi unfolded the map on his knee and plugged the coordinates of his flight plan into the Garmin computer. He was fifty-five years old, of average height and less than average build. Once long ago someone had said he was shaped like a pear, and the description still held true. But if he were a pear, it would be of the prickly variety. Mikhail Borzoi was not a nice man. Nice men did not control the world’s largest producer of aluminum. Nice men did not amass a fortune worth some $20 billion, and that was after the stock market crash. Nice men did not rise from an impoverished childhood to stand at the president’s side and be among the three candidates certain to take his place in the next election. Not in Russia. In Russia, nice men got trampled, chewed up, and spit out.

Borzoi radioed the flight tower and received his clearance to taxi. He had always dreamed of being a military pilot. As a youth, he’d attended the annual May Day parade in Red Square and gasped as the squadrons of MiGs and Sukhois and Tupolevs flew overhead. He had envisioned himself soaring high into the stratosphere and speeding back to earth. Those dreams ended at the age of ten, when the optometrist plunked a pair of hideous horn-rimmed spectacles on his nose. If he couldn’t be a fighter pilot, he would settle for second best. He would be a spy.

Borzoi taxied to the end of the runway and turned his aircraft into the wind. Today’s flight plan showed a quick 300-kilometer trip from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport to the town of Norilsk, where he maintained his largest smelting plant. Total flying time was calculated at one hour, thirty-three minutes. Weather was clear, with visibility of 10 kilometers. It was a perfect day to fly.

Borzoi powered up the engines, then released the brake and sped down the runway. At 120 knots, he rotated the wheels up. The Cirrus’s nose rose and the small aircraft climbed magnificently, rising like a leaf in an updraft. Borzoi smiled, looked at his copilot, and said, “Doesn’t this little devil just love to fly?”

The copilot did not respond.

When the Cirrus reached a height of one thousand meters above ground level, an explosive device containing fifty grams of high-grade plastique planted next to the gasoline tank automatically detonated. The Cirrus holds fifty gallons of high-octane aviation or test fuel. As Borzoi had earlier noted, the tank was filled. The explosion that ensued was monstrous. One moment the plane was climbing at a rate of two hundred meters per minute. The next it was a raging ball of flame.

The Cirrus cartwheeled and fell to earth.

There were no survivors.

The crash was ruled an accident and later graded “pilot error,” though no details were ever provided.

Word of Borzoi’s death reached Sergei Shvets less than five minutes later. The FSB was proud of its network of sources, and Shvets liked to brag that he was the best-informed man in the country. Upon receiving the news, he cast a dour face and professed his sadness. Borzoi was a friend of long standing and, of course, a fellow spy.

Privately, Shvets smiled.

Two down. One to go.

Only Igor Ivanov stood between him and the presidency.

   Jonathan threw an arm over the gunwale and pulled himself into the skiff. He’d been swimming for two hours without cease. His neck ached. His shoulders burned. Worse, his stomach roiled with incipient nausea. Twice he’d come up for air only to find a patrol boat passing nearby. Both times he’d swallowed a mouthful of seawater in his hurry to disappear. He ran his hand over his face, skimming off a layer of oil and salt and effluents. Laying his head on the warm wooden slats, he let the sun beat down upon his face. He needed rest, but rest was a luxury he no longer possessed.

With a grunt, Jonathan sat up and took a long look at the shoreline. Here and there a couple sunbathed, a man walked with his dog. Up the beach, a trio of children labored over a sandcastle. By his reckoning, he’d covered 6 or 7 kilometers, much of it below the surface. Instead of drifting with the prevailing current, he’d headed north up the coast, battling a stiff tide all the way. Once clear of the harbor, he’d swum past the city’s industrial quarter and farther still, until he reached a stretch of beach with waist-high grass and modest vacation homes tucked among scraggly pines. An irregular fleet of motorboats was moored 50 meters offshore, but all were covered with canopies. It was with no small joy that he’d spotted the skiff bobbing nearby.

A spasm racked his stomach, and Jonathan retched into the sea. Feeling better, he turned his attention to the outboard engine. It was a compact Mercury 75, similar to the auxiliary motor aboard the 16-foot Avalon he’d sailed along Maryland’s Eastern Shore as a youngster. Unscrewing the fuel cap, he observed that the tank was half full, give or take. He returned the cap, then adjusted the choke. It would be best to wait until dark before stealing someone’s boat, but waiting was not an option. At that moment, Kate Ford and her Italian colleagues were canvassing the tourist district in the vicinity of the Hotel Rondo, questioning shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and hotel managers about whether they’d seen or spoken with him. It was only a matter of time until they reached the Hotel De La Ville. Caution demanded that he assume they already had.

Moving fore, Jonathan untied the skiff, weighed anchor, then took his seat by the motor. He gave the cord a yank and the engine sputtered to life. To his fugitive’s ears, the noise was as loud as a grenade. He guided the skiff out of the inlet north along the coast, keeping one eye on the shore. At any moment he expected the skiff’s owner to run out of one of the matchbox houses, shouting for him to bring the vessel back. But no one so much as glanced in his direction.

In minutes his clothes had dried and the sun beat hot on his brow. A weighted net lay in the bow, and he used the lead gumdrops to pin down the currency remaining in his wallet on the bench so that it might dry as well.

Gradually the character of the shoreline changed. The beach disappeared and was replaced by an endless jetty. The terrain grew mountainous, and slopes descended steeply into the sea, a succession of rugged cliffs curled around azure inlets.

Jonathan studied the coastline, looking for a place to put in. It was essential that he start to think aggressively. His respect for the law, and those who’d sworn to uphold it, was no longer appropriate. To a man in his position, the law was a hindrance. It was the law, be it in the form of Kate Ford, Charles Graves, or the blue-jacketed carabinieri who had pursued him across the docks in Civitavecchia, that sought to prevent him from finding Emma.

He grimaced, acknowledging a new and discomfiting emotion. No longer did he think of Emma as his wife, or even his friend. The events of the past forty-eight hours cast her in a cold, objective light, and for once he allowed her actions to paint her as she truly was. The portrait was unflattering. He forced himself to stare at this mental picture, to memorize its violent features and to put a proper name to her. Not Lara. Or Eva. Or even Emma. Something far more damning.

She was the enemy. And she had to be stopped.

But then what?

Jonathan did not yet have an answer.

Rounding the next point, he angled the skiff into a half-moon bay. There was no beach, not even a jetty, just rugged vertical cliffs that descended 20 meters into the water. At several points staircases cut into the rock ascended from private docks. A succession of seaview residences was built on the bluffs above them. Some resembled palazzos, others were stark and modern, and a sad few were uncared-for and dilapidated.

Circling back, Jonathan guided the skiff toward a recess in the wall, where he dropped anchor. Gathering his money and his wallet, he stripped to his undershorts, bundled his wallet and clothing into a ball, and swam to the dock, an arm held high to keep his possessions dry.

Once on the dock, he gazed at the house 30 meters above him. It was a weathered single-story residence, metal slats concealing its windows, a lonely flagpole standing sentry. To his eye, it appeared vacant, if not abandoned. He threw on his clothes, then climbed the stairs. An empty swimming pool fronted the home. He circled it, jumped a low gate, and came to the garage. Windows high in the wall offered a view inside. The garage was empty. No car. No bicycles.

Jonathan jogged up the road. In the distance he could hear the roar of speeding cars. In a few minutes he reached the highway. He looked north and south.

He ran north.

   It was a yellow Ducati 350—a ten-year-old bullet bike with fat tires and a sparkling chrome muffler—and it sat in the center of a jammed parking lot servicing a beachside restaurant called the Coney Island.
Go figure
, Jonathan thought to himself as he moved purposefully among the cars packed cheek by jowl on the steaming asphalt. In America, every other restaurant was named after an Italian city. He couldn’t count the number of Café Romas or Portofinos or Firenzes he’d been in. Now the Italians were getting into the act.