Why had the man been wearing a knee-length white coat? he wondered. It looked like the kind of coat a doctor would wear in a hospital. Or a technician in a laboratory. What was behind those basement windows? Ignoring a metal band that seemed to tighten around his chest, he stayed low and darted toward shrubs at the side of the Cloister. No sooner had he disappeared behind one than boot steps rounded a corner, passing close enough to Malone for him to hear a scrape of metal against metal, perhaps from a rifle against an equipment belt.
Other sounds attracted Malone’s attention – muffled voices, the rasp of what sounded like wood against stone. Wary, he peered through a window, staying to the side so he wouldn’t be seen. Not that it did him any good – the illumination through the glass was filtered by a blind. The voices seemed to come from farther along, however, and when he crawled to the next window, reaching the cover of another shrub, he discovered that instead of a blind, this window had an inside shutter, the slats of which had not been completely closed.
He was able to see part of a room – segments of a stone floor, tables, cabinets, laboratory instruments, computers, and various electronic devices. Two large appliances against the far wall looked like an industrial-grade freezer and refrigerator. The voices became more distinct as the guard and the white-coated man stepped into view. The man spoke what sounded like Russian, which the guard didn’t seem to understand and Malone certainly didn’t, but the gist was clear – the man wanted the guard to open a wooden crate.
Nails screeched as a crowbar pried them free. When the guard rammed so hard that a board shattered, Malone heard another voice cry out in protest. A third man stepped into view. He, too, wore a knee-length white coat. He gestured in alarm, speaking in agitated Russian, the frantic point of which was obvious: Be careful. Malone had seen those gestures before. In fact, he had seen this man before, the same balding, stoop-shouldered man he had watched get out of the helicopter the first morning he had been on the estate. The man had been dismayed by the rough way Bellasar’s men had handled the crates he had brought, just as he was dismayed now.
Finally getting a closer look at him, Malone focused all his concentration, straining to fix the man’s features in his memory: the deep eyes, the high forehead, the oval face, the -
A distant rumble made Malone flinch. As it rapidly swelled to a whumping roar, an icy hand seemed to squeeze his heart. A helicopter. Jesus. Is Bellasar returning? Is Sienna with him?
The roar became loud enough that the men in the basement heard it and turned toward the window. Malone jerked to the side. Nothing in the way they spoke made him suspect that they had noticed him, but in the heightened security that would result from Bellasar’s return, a guard was bound to see him. There’d be so much activity at the château, Malone wouldn’t be able to sneak back inside.
His only chance was to take advantage of the brief distraction the chopper’s arrival would create. Blinding lights came on between the château and the Cloister, illuminating the helicopter pad. Almost at once, another glaring light illuminated the area, but this one blazed from the sky, from the nose of the swiftly approaching helicopter.
The guards will be looking from one light to the other, Malone thought urgently. But the moment the chopper sets down, everything’ll be back to business as usual. This is my only chance. Move.
But even as he braced himself to run from the shrubs at the side of the Cloister toward the greater number of shrubs across from him, a guard charged past. Malone barely checked his impulse in time. He looked to make sure that another guard wasn’t hurrying after the first one. Yes, they’re temporarily distracted, he fought to assure himself. I can do this.
The moment the chopper roared overhead, its spotlight flashing past, Malone sprinted from the side of the building. He reached the opposite shrubs at the same time he heard Russian voices as the door to the Cloister banged open behind him. It sounded as if they were headed toward the landing pad, but he didn’t look behind him. He didn’t stop. It had taken him thirty minutes to get here, creeping from statue to fountain to hedge to whatever other murky cover he’d been able to find. But now he had to cover the same distance quicker than it would take to walk it.
Staying low, moving with furtive speed, trying to blend with shadows, he heard the chopper set down to his right, its rotors slowing. Any moment now, Bellasar or whoever was in the chopper – Please, God, let Sienna be all right – would get out and proceed toward the château. Bellasar would ask the guards about Malone’s activities while he had been gone. The guard who’d seen Malone go into the library would report that the last time he’d checked, Malone was still in the library, asleep in a chair. Bellasar would want to see for himself. And if I’m not in that chair when Bellasar looks in, Malone thought, he might get suspicious enough to check if I’m in my room.
As a guard loomed into view, Malone dropped to a crouch beside another statue and froze, praying that the guard wouldn’t look in his direction. On the right, through a gap in some bushes, Malone saw the starkly illuminated landing pad. Angrily, Bellasar got out of the helicopter. Before the white-coated men could reach him, he turned away. Followed by his bodyguards, he took long strides toward the château. But there wasn’t any sign of Potter. Far more important, where was Sienna? My God, has something happened to her? The next instant, someone shifted within the helicopter. A figure came slowly into view. But Malone’s relief when the figure turned out to be Sienna was immediately replaced by worry when he saw how hesitantly she got down from the helicopter. Even at a distance, she looked dazed.
Move! Malone warned himself. There’s nothing you can do for her now, and if you don’t get back to the library before Bellasar looks in on you, you won’t be able to help her anytime. Hell, you won’t even be able to help yourself.
As the guard that blocked his way moved on, Malone looked once more at Sienna, noted how unsteadily she walked across the landing pad, and urged himself past the statue, then toward the château. Lights came on in several upper windows – presumably Bellasar’s suite. Maybe Bellasar intends to go directly to bed, Malone thought hopefully. Maybe he won’t check on me until the morning.
Malone’s chest heaved as he reached the final protective section of shrubs. He peered urgently around to make certain there weren’t any guards in the immediate area, that no one would see him dart across the white-pebbled walkway, open the library window, and crawl back inside. As assured as he could be under the circumstances, knowing that he had to commit to taking the risk, he braced himself for a final effort and felt a cold paralysis seize his muscles as the library windows suddenly blazed with light.
4
“You told me he was in here!” Bellasar shouted, squinting from the bright overhead light.
“He was,” the guard insisted. “I saw him asleep in that chair an hour ago.”
“Then where the hell is he now?”
“He must have wakened and gone to his room.”
“Suddenly he has an interest in old books? Suddenly he’s hanging around the library at midnight? You never saw him go back to his room?”