“If I were to agree,” he said slowly, watching the predatory gleam in the eyes of each of the men, “then my name appears on no records. We don’t sign papers; I don’t sit on any boards; I’m not listed as an advisor. Essentially I’m a ghost. At most I’m a friend who meets some gentlemen once in a while at the races.”
“Not a problem,” said Sheffield.
“Second condition. The half-million bonus is matched by a similar fee at the other end. If I can get the bulk research packages from Chechnya and Vilnius—”
“And Kazakhstan,” added one of the other MPs.
Clive nodded. “Those three. If I get all three, then I get the second bonus.”
The partners exchanged looks, but Mowbry looked hard at Clive. “Very well.”
“Last condition,” Clive said.
“You want a lot,” Sheffield muttered.
“You ask a lot. This last part is not negotiable. I do this for you and then I’m out.”
None of the other men looked happy about that. Mowbry frowned and shook his head. “Can we agree that once this is over we can discuss other projects? You can decide on a case-by-case basis.”
Clive smiled. “My prices would very likely go up in that eventuality.”
“We’re not Arabs haggling over a rug, Monroe. We know what you’re worth, and if another batch of research comes up that we must have, then we’ll make you an appropriate offer.”
Clive Monroe thought about it for a full three minutes. Mowbry and the others held their tongues, each of them afraid to say anything to break the spell of the moment.
“Very well,” Clive said, and he stood up. The others stood as well and they all shook hands, clapping Clive on the back, congratulating one another.
“Time for champagne,” declared Mowbry. He plucked a chilled bottle of Bollinger from an ice bucket and held it up for inspection. “I knew you’d agree, Monroe. I knew I could count on you.”
Suddenly the champagne bottle exploded, showering them all with wine and bubbles and tiny splinters of glass. There was no bang, no hiss of troubled gasses from the bottle. It just disintegrated and showered the room, leaving Lord Mowbry holding the neck in which the cork was still firmly seated.
“Bloody hell!” cried Sheffield, pawing at his clothes and stepping back as if trying to back away from the mess on his suit.
Mowbry looked shocked and embarrassed. “Good lord,” he said, aghast, “the bottle must have been shaken or—”
He stopped speaking and stared at Clive, who was similarly spattered with champagne but who had a peculiar smile on his face, as if he’d just remembered something wryly amusing. His eyes has lost their calculating coldness and stared at the other men without focus.
“My dear fellow,” Mowbry began, tentatively reaching for Clive, afraid that the exploding bottle had cut him. “Your chest…”
Clive looked down. His tie hung askew and his coat unbuttoned. The crisp white of his shirt was dark with moisture, but not with the pale stains of wine. From the center of his chest a red flower bloomed, spreading petals of crimson that vanished under the folds of his jacket.
“I—”
His knees abruptly buckled and he dropped to the floor with a heavy thud of bone on carpet.
Sheffield looked from Clive to the broken bottle and then, driven by some premonition of horror, turned to the big picture window. There was a single hole punched through the reinforced glass with dozens of crooked cracks spreading out in a spiderweb pattern.
The second shot exploded the entire pane of glass and this time the bullet — unheard and unseen — punched a hole above Clive’s left eyebrow and blew out the back of his head. Bone and brain splashed the back wall of the box. The crashing of the thick glass and the terrified shouts of the four men muffled the sound of Clive Monroe’s body crumpling backward onto the carpet. The sound of the gunshot report drifted lazily toward them from far away.
Three hundred and twenty yards away, deep inside a stand of trees by the far turn, Conrad Veder dropped the rifle on the ground. It was one he had purchased for the job and sighted in for this hit. He stripped off the long rubber sleeve protectors and removed the plastic welding mask. He had never touched those items with his bare flesh, and all traces of gunpowder residue would be burned into them. He dropped them into a shallow ditch he’d prepared, emptied a whole can of lighter fluid over them, and dropped in a wooden Lucifer match. Fire bloomed at once. Veder pulled off the rubber surgical gloves and dropped them into the blaze.
He moved quickly through the trees, retrieving the fawn coat and trilby hat he’d hung on branches, and pulled them on. A pair of Wellingtons stood by the edge of the copse and he stepped into them. The shoes he wore were size 10 trainers of the most common and inexpensive generic brand. Probably half the people on the racecourse would be wearing the same brand. With his feet inside the boots and the coat and hat he looked like what he was: a racecourse official. One of the nameless, faceless men hired by the day to stand at various points along the racecourse to watch for falls or other problems. Veder had worked at the racetrack for three weeks. He moved out of the trees and crossed the track and then cut through another wooded area, coming out on the far side of the stands. Then he joined the crowd that moved and yelled in confusion as word of the murder spread through the rumor mill. He eventually ducked out of the crowd, found a bathroom, removed his coat, hat, and boots, and left them in a stall. From under the plastic trash bag in the bathroom dustbin he removed a small parcel that contained new shoes, a blue windbreaker printed with the name of the local football team, wire-framed glasses, and a pair of spectator binoculars. He flushed his mustache down the loo.
When he rejoined the crowd he was one of hundreds who looked and dressed and acted like startled spectators at an afternoon’s event that had become suddenly more interesting.
It was the second kill since he’d accepted the seven-target job from DaCosta. The first had been simpler — the poisoning of a man in a wheelchair whose once brilliant mind was lost in the unlit labyrinth of early-onset Alzheimer’s. Two down, five to go.
Chapter Thirty-One
“The Twins are still in the staff room,” said Otto. “They’re interviewing Bannerjee and their other spies. Before you ask, yes… Bannerjee and the others have been briefed. They should be wrapping up in a couple of hours. You could stay in the tank a bit longer if you’d like.”
“No,” said Cyrus as he climbed out of the sensory deprivation tank. “I’m done.” He cut a sharp look at Otto. “What’s wrong?”
“We lost another one,” said Otto as he held out a bathrobe.
Water sluiced down Cyrus Jakoby’s legs to form a salty puddle on the floor. He turned and held his arms backward so Otto could slide the robe on.
“Another what?”
“Researcher. Daniel Horst.”
“Virology?”
“Epideminiology.”
“How?”
“He broke his bathroom mirror and cut his wrists,” said Otto. “He bled out in his tub.”
Cyrus scowled as he padded barefoot to the workstation in the corner. He called up the staff directory, found Daniel Horst, and entered a password to access the man’s most recent psychological evaluations. Cyrus read through and his frown deepened.