Her wide eyes stared into the darkness when she heard the automated voice say the line was unavailable. She waited a minute and tried again. Unavailable. And again. Still unavailable. Lines like this didn’t become unavailable. Rebecca felt the unnerving compulsion to look over her shoulder at the apartment door.
She slammed the phone down hard, suddenly understanding what was going on. First what happened in Paris on Monday, then an American from the embassy killed last night, now the emergency line dead. The only explanation was terrifying, but she made a determined effort to remain calm. There must be something you’re missing, she told herself. She pored over all the reports, every scrap of intel she had access to. She needed to prove herself wrong or prove herself right-and quickly.
Interpol gave her the answer she was dreading. She read through a report that came out of Switzerland. A house had burned down north of Geneva, and a man found dead. Police were looking for the killer. Rebecca’s eyes focused on the address. She had seen that address before. She’d helped find it. They’d tried again, but no one had told her. She was out of the loop. Which could only mean one thing.
Rebecca grabbed the files from her desk, carried them into the kitchen, and threw them into the sink. She rummaged through her cupboards and found the bottle of super strength rum she’d been saving for a rainy day. Today it was pouring outside and in. She unwrapped the top, tugged off the stopper, and splashed some into the sink. She took the lighter for the stove off its hook, put the end into the sink, and stood well back.
She clicked the button and the rum ignited. Rebecca took a swig from the bottle and watched the files burn for a moment. It didn’t take her long to throw some clothes into a suitcase. She took practical items, nothing fancy. She had a wardrobe full of clothes she loved but it was no time to be sentimental. She had to get out as fast as possible.
There was a cleanup job underway; she was certain of it now. All the signs were there. The op had gone wrong and whoever was in charge had pulled the plug, and they were cutting off the loose ends. She knew this kind of thing happened in the old days, but she never would have believed it still occurred in this age. You’d better believe it, she told herself.
Why the need to start killing people? Just what the hell was really going on? She had the sinking feeling that the op wasn’t just off the books-it was out of the library entirely.
Her control was already dead: The report said that he was killed late last night. Only seven hours ago. They would be sending someone for her too; they might have sent them already. She looked at her watch. Each passing second brought her own demise hurtling closer.
Her heart was pounding as she zipped up her laptop and grabbed her personal effects. She left the comms equipment. She didn’t need it, and all the files were on the computer. In the kitchen the thick smoke made her cough as she turned on the faucets to put out the fire in the sink.
She left the apartment, her throat choked with fear, and walked along the corridor expecting a man with a silenced pistol to appear at any moment. No, she reminded herself, they wouldn’t do it like that. She’d have an accident, maybe take an overdose. Maybe get mugged in a restroom.
She decided against the elevator and took the stairs. She hurried down them, her face slick with perspiration. On the ground floor she didn’t use the front door but found a fire exit at the back and pushed it open into an alleyway. The cold wind tossed her hair over her shoulders. Rain soaked her.
Rebecca could hear traffic nearby but could barely see. If she ran they might hear her, so she walked slowly and carefully to the end of the alley. Relief washed over her as she stepped out onto the street.
Maybe she was wrong, maybe her control had just been unfortunate, but she had spent her life analyzing the odds, and the odds told her to get the hell away. She had a car but didn’t go to it. They would know about it. It was registered in her name. Maybe there was a bomb waiting underneath it or the brake cables were severed.
Rebecca walked down the street, the rain beating down on the top of her head. She felt safer to be near other people. They wouldn’t do anything in public. She hailed a cab, telling the driver to take her to the airport. She had a place she knew she could go, where no one would find her. On the way she thought about what had happened and what might happen, and a plan started to formulate in her mind. By the time she got out of the taxi she knew exactly what she was going to do. It was dangerous, crazy even.
But it might just keep her alive.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Paris, France
Friday
08:12 CET
Alvarez pulled his bulky frame out from the hotel bed of nails and headed for the shower. After three efficient minutes of washing and scrubbing, he got out, dried himself, and dressed. He’d had only a handful of hours of sleep the night before, the same as every other night over the week, and he felt like pounded crap. He was running on fumes, and the fumes were running out. When he was younger he could do whatever the job required, whenever, but things had taken a downward trend somewhere along the road after taking Route 35. Route 40 was just around the corner.
Things weren’t going to get any easier, with the job or with his body. Time was the worst enemy there was. The way Alvarez saw it you were smart if you knew fighting it was a losing battle, but you were a coward if you didn’t fight anyway. Alvarez had allowed himself an extra half hour in bed in an effort to rejuvenate his brain and sinews. The big-ass yawn told him it hadn’t been enough. The hunt for Ozols’s killer had gone cold, and it felt like they were clutching at oiled straws. Alvarez’s orders were to concentrate on trying to find out who hired the seven shooters to kill the assassin. Things hadn’t gone too bad on that front. With bodies, fingerprints, and DNA a lot could be achieved.
Seven out of the seven dead shooters had been identified, and of those the American, Stevenson, was the best lead so far. Noakes had found a series of photographs on Stevenson’s hard drive of some kind of meeting between Stevenson and an unidentified man, dated a couple weeks before the Paris massacre. A third individual had taken the shots secretly, mainly of the mystery man, an overweight guy in his fifties carrying a briefcase. There were pictures of him arriving at a café in Brussels and taking a seat at one of the tables outside where Stevenson waited; of the two conversing for a while, drinking coffee, and eating pastries; and of the fat guy standing to go, leaving the briefcase beneath the table.
The photographer had then followed him to his car and taken a few pictures of him driving away. For some reason the guy with the camera had failed to get a shot of the license plate, but Noakes was doing his best trying to get it from reflected surfaces. So far without luck.
Stevenson’s bank records showed that he had deposited one hundred thousand euros in cash a day later. No one at the bank had questioned the deposit or notified the authorities about it. The bank manager had since been fired. Alvarez was determined to identify the guy with the briefcase and was working toward that goal with his typical composed efficiency.
Alvarez’s ability to remain calm in a crisis was one of his most highly prized traits. It took a lot for him to get emotional and even more for him to act on that emotion. In his time in the military he’d been on the receiving end of some hairy situations, and as an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency more than one gun had been pushed in his face. Only once had he genuinely feared for his life, and at that moment he found that fear focused him and made him deadly.
If anything it was easier for him to deal with danger than it was the more mundane varieties of stress. People not answering the fucking phone pissed him off far more than staring down the barrel of a.45.