8
Special Agent Jade Zewinski pushed her way through the guests. The call to her cell phone had interrupted a tête-à-tête with a handsome Italian actor. He was insufferable and pretentious but attractive enough for a romp in the sack. Jade had left the buck standing there with his Champagne. She didn’t even excuse herself.
Her second-in-command didn’t waste any time when she got to him. “It’s your friend,” he spit out. “She’s dead. They found her upstairs. I’m so sorry.”
The blood drained from her face. She felt a lump in her throat. She and Sophie had known each other since high school in Paris. Back then, they were like sisters. They hadn’t seen each other in more than a year, though — until two days ago, when Sophie had shown up in Rome. She’d changed. She was more mature and had lost nearly all of her youthful spontaneity.
Jade’s second-in-command cleared his throat. “Ma’am, Jaigu is already up there.”
Jade stiffened. “What the hell?”
“He got the news before we did. I don’t know how.”
“That shit’s got no business being at our crime scene. He’s just an intelligence officer. Have the men toss him out.”
“That’s hard to do, Chief. He’s got the ambassador’s ear.”
Jade picked up her pace, bumping into an Italian minister and nearly knocking over the German ambassador. She was thinking about Sophie. At breakfast in a small café on the Piazza Navone, Sophie had filled in the gaps. She had finished her degree in comparative history and taken over her parents’ Paris bookstore on the Rue de Seine. It specialized in old esoteric manuscripts. Demand was exploding for alchemy treatises, Masonic documents, and occult breviaries from the eighteenth century. She had customers from all over the world.
On the side, she had become a Freemason, mostly out of curiosity. Her thesis director had sponsored her. The path fascinated her, and she volunteered as an archivist at the Grand Orient Freemason headquarters in Paris. With her knowledge of ancient manuscripts, she had quickly organized and documented the tons of archives hidden away there.
Jade had made a face when Sophie mentioned the Freemasons. There was no love lost with these people. She’d rubbed shoulders with brothers twice in her life and had bitter memories of both occasions. The last time, she’d missed out on a position in Washington because an initiate had skillfully worked his connections. She hated this kind of old-boys network, although Masons were not the only ones with power in French diplomatic circles. In fact, they weren’t as powerful as Catholics and aristocrats, but still…
Sophie had stopped in Rome while en route to Jerusalem. She had seemed tense, saying she was on an assignment for the Grand Orient. She was supposed to be giving some documents to an Israeli researcher. She kept glancing around during their breakfast together, as if she suspected someone was watching her. She had asked Jade to keep a briefcase with the documents in the embassy safe. Jade joked about her paranoia, but agreed to keep them anyway. Then they talked about their relationships, an endless topic. Sophie mentioned an older man — a rich American customer who came through Paris occasionally — and some special women friends.
Sophie had laughed and flirted with her friend. But Jade had always made it clear that she only had eyes for men.
Now Sophie would never laugh again.
On the way up the stairs, Jade decided to keep quiet about Sophie’s documents. She had a hunch that they had something to do with her friend’s death. She pushed the thought out of her head when she spotted the two men bent over the body.
“You’ve got no fucking business being here,” she yelled. “Get away. Now, damn it!”
Marcas started. Her voice carried authority, and she was obviously used to giving orders. He looked up and saw an athletically built woman with short blonde hair. She was wearing loose dark-colored pants and a suit jacket — fitted to give her access to her service weapon.
When he stood up, she was right in his face, staring at him with a clear look of disdain.
“Hold up,” Jaigu intervened. “I asked him to come. He’s a homicide detective with the Criminal Investigation Division in Paris. I thought he could help us.”
Jade shot Jaigu a look. “Since when does a man like you think? If you really wanted to use your brains, you would have kept him away from the crime scene. Until further notice, I’m head of security for the embassy. So at the risk of repeating myself, I’ll try to appeal to your inherent intelligence: get the fuck out of here, and take this dude with you!”
Before Jaigu could respond, Marcas spoke up. “You owe him more respect than you’ve shown. But I understand your point of view. I’ll leave you to your investigation. Everyone has a job to do. Alexis, come on. I’ve seen enough.”
What a harpy, Marcas thought as he walked away with Jaigu. She would have ripped him a new one if she’d gotten the chance. Whatever. With any luck, he’d find his movie producer and cap the evening with a little seduction.
Jaigu interrupted his fantasy. “So what are your impressions?”
“About what, that shrew of yours?”
“No, the body.”
“I don’t know. There’s no clear logic in the blows she received. She probably died from blunt-force trauma to the forehead, but I don’t understand why she was hit on the shoulder, unless it was to make her suffer. A broken clavicle can be quite painful. For the rest, you’ll have to trust your Amazon and the Italian police.”
“I doubt that. There’s no way any Romans cops will set foot in the embassy. Officially, the woman’s death will be listed as accidental.”
Marcas looked at his friend for a long time. “You’re not really going to cover up a murder, are you? That’s illegal.”
“Don’t worry. We won’t keep anything from the French authorities. But the Italians have way too many mob-related murders to worry about. A French woman suffering a fatal head injury from a fall will go by the boards. So put all this behind you and have some Champagne on the republic’s dime. I have to go see our friend the ambassador.”
9
Jade Zewinski stared at her friend’s bloody body. Two hours earlier, they had been joking at the reception, challenging each other to come on to this person or that. Jade remembered Sophie’s oval face, the rebellious lock of hair, her childlike smile. Now Sophie’s lifeless body lay in front of her, a mass of dead flesh that would end up in a coffin, her face smashed by the baton on the floor next to her.
Jade shook herself out of her trance. She needed to act quickly. A guard had seen the woman who had come up with Sophie, and a description had been sent to all the security agents.
She shouted out her orders. “Get the on-call doctor here. Have him fix her up a little. Make sure there’s respiratory assistance for the transfer. The oxygen mask will cover up the wounds.”
The doors slammed shut. Only two men remained. They were gendarmes, men who were quick and could be trusted.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She recognized the ambassador’s voice.
“Special Agent Zewinski, what’s going on?” the ambassador asked. “How serious is it?”
They used a code for the level of emergency. It was based on the Richter scale. Nine meant the ambassador’s life was in danger.
For Jade, Sophie’s death was an eight. But she gave the ambassador a detached, professional assessment. “I’d say a five.” The event was worrisome, but controllable.
“Okay, give me a quick rundown. Then I’ve got to take care of our guests.”