Eye of the Storm (19 page)

“Come down,” one shouted. “There’s nowhere to go.”

Wrapping her arm around one of the vertical supports, she swung to face her pursuers, her pistol aimed at them. Two men were scrambling up the ladder leading to the cab. She shot out the window inches above their hands. “Stop! The next one hits your head.”

It was a futile gesture and they all knew it. They could easily out wait her and they had more ammunition than she had. Not to mention more men to out flank her.

But she wasn’t planning to stay up here all night. She just needed to give Vincent enough time to escape. How long had it been?

The men below seemed in no rush—in fact, they had leapt off the ladder and were now laughing at her. She was certain she was a sight they’d never seen before: barefoot in a billowing white wedding gown, hanging off the side of a derrick, aiming a pistol at them. If she wasn’t gambling with Muriel’s life, she might have laughed herself.

As it was, she was closer to crying. Especially as their high-powered flashlights caught the black streaks of grime and blood that stained Muriel’s poor dress. There were so many more important things she should be worried about: had Vincent made it to the phone yet, was Muriel still alive, could she reason with Kasanov?

But still, she couldn’t stop a gush of tears at the sight of Muriel’s dress, her gift to Cassie. Awkwardly, she ducked her face into the crook of her shoulder, wiping her tears so she could see clearly. Time to bargain.

“Come down,” one of the teens called up. Several others were circling around to the other side of the magnet. Cassie whirled on her perch, one foot slipping free, dangling in the air until she was able to find purchase on the metal run once more. She aimed her pistol at the new threat.

“Tell them to stop. I want to speak with Kasanov.”

“No, you don’t. He’s really pissed off at you. Says your friend will pay dearly.”

“If he hurts her,” Cassie gulped, hoped her bluff would work, “tell him he’ll never get the gold. Tell him, if he doesn’t let Muriel go, I’ll kill myself.”

She raised the pistol to her temple. The men took a step back. Even the dogs quieted. The only sound she heard was the rustle of silk against metal.

The scrapyard spread out below her like an alien landscape. As alien as the thought of pulling the trigger.

Would Kasanov call her bluff? Or would he free Muriel?

THE IDIOT BRITS
on Gibraltar had been both astounded and flabbergasted by the arrival of the
Senaia
and the stories it brought with it. An Irish seaman, a handful of his fellow shipmates, another two dozen soldiers from the British Expeditionary Forces, and six hundred civilians, including some of the greatest scientific and artistic minds of Germany, all saved by one seventeen-year-old girl and her rag-tag group of Maquis? Preposterous.

“Our man in Lisbon has a working arrangement with a leader, code name Tempest,” Archer, the MI-9 official who was debriefing Paddy, insisted. “Right now, he’s preparing an escape route for six RAF officers over the Pyrenees.”

Paddy was tired of arguing with Archer. He was exhausted and his temper wearing thin. “La Tempête is Rosa Costello. Without her, your men and future escapes from the south of France are in danger. You have to let me return.”

The only reason Archer was willing to listen to Paddy’s request that he be seconded to Intelligence instead of returning to his billet as radio operator on one of His Majesty’s warships, was that Paddy agreed to reveal the inner workings of Rosa’s network, promised that if they let him save Rosa, then the Brits could use Rosa and her people.

Rosa would kill him for betraying her confidence—her passion for secrecy was the only thing that had kept her alive this long—but Paddy didn’t care. Not if it gave him a chance to find her again.

“Look here, good man,” Archer said in his infuriating Eton accent. “We do know what we’re doing—”

“Then who’s Fisherman? Tempest’s newest radio operator, do you know his identity?”

Archer cleared his throat. “Not exactly. You see, our man in Lisbon was killed in a car accident, everything burned with him. But Fisherman must have been compromised because Tempest himself contacted us about retrieving our men. Unusual, because in the past, he’d always maintained his distance from radio communications.”

Paddy shook his head, tried not to laugh. “Fisherman wasn’t compromised. He’s standing here before you. And you’re right, Rosa never used the radio herself—too risky. Whoever contacted you must be working for the Krauts.”

The other man’s face blanched. “If what you say is true, then we almost released the position of those RAF officers—”

“To the bloody Nazis.” Paddy considered his options. “Ask your people if they’ve received any information on Rosa Costello’s whereabouts. She most likely was captured, maybe killed, the night we sailed. Give me that information and I’ll go back, save your people.”

“They’re your people too,” Archer snapped. “You are still a subject of His Majesty, the King.”

“Ah, but I’m a lowly merchant sailor. Not even an officer. What do I care about some RAF flyboy? Unless of course, I was seconded to Intelligence.”

Archer narrowed his eyes but picked up his phone. About bloody time. Paddy tried to sit still, but after listening to a few minutes of “civilized” chatter that had nothing to do with anything important, he could contain himself no longer and began to pace the elegantly appointed office. Not even the view of the Mediterranean could calm him, even though all his life the sea had been his refuge. The thought of learning Rosa’s fate pushed all that aside.

Finally, a tall blond man with a hawkish nose and linen suit entered the office, depositing a folder on Archer’s desk. He cleared his throat and wiped his hands with his handkerchief as if the contents of the file were distasteful.

Paddy wanted to rip the papers from Archer’s hands, but instead stood at attention across the desk. Archer looked up, a frown on his face.

“You never said that this Costello woman was a gypsy. She’s not even French. She’s
apatrides
, a person without a country or passport.”

“What happened to her? Is she still alive?”

Archer didn’t answer his question right away, instead looked past Paddy as if he were invisible. Paddy felt his hopes sink into despair.

“It appears we have made a miscalculation,” Archer began.

“Miscalculation? What the bloody hell does that mean?”

“We thought she was, uh, entertainment for the Gestapo officers,” Hawknose put in. “It wasn’t until we debriefed Lieutenant Carstairs that we learned differently.”

Paddy narrowed his eyes. “Because she was a gypsy and a woman you assumed she was a whore? That’s why you wouldn’t believe me, Irish bastard that I am—”

“Now, Hart, there’s no call for—”

“Just tell me she’s alive, goddamn it!”

Paddy’s words echoed through the vaulted ceilinged room. Hawknose took a step back as if fearing violence while Archer spread his hands in surrender. “She’s alive. As far as we know,” he qualified. “It’s difficult to obtain accurate—”

“Where, damn it?”

“Paris. The Fresnes Prison, best we can tell.”

Paddy staggered back a step and sank into the chair behind him. Oh god, Rosa. In Marseilles, he’d heard the horror stories emanating from Fresnes. The Gestapo had turned it into their own chamber of horrors where they kept prisoners for interrogation—torture was a better word—before sending them east to an extermination camp.

“I’m sorry, Hart. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Send me back. I can save her.”

Archer looked up at that, his previous look of haughty superiority now replaced with pity. “No one can save her—she’s in the belly of the beast, man. There’s nothing you or anyone can do. But we need to re-establish an escape network in the south of France. Do you think you can tackle the job? It would take me weeks to get anyone else trained and ready and we’ve men desperate to escape. Are you up it?”

Paddy rose to his feet and looked down on the official who saw the war as a chess game, his pieces sliding about on a board and bearing no resemblance to men and women with hearts and loves and fear and courage. He wanted to spit on the Brit with his manners and polish, but he couldn’t—Rosa needed him. These bloody fools weren’t going to save her.

So instead, he fisted his hands at his sides and nodded. “When do I leave?”

<<<>>>

THIS TIME KASANOV’S
call came on Drake’s cell. Drake and Jimmy stepped into the Commander’s office where they could have some privacy. Arrogant bastard knew the FBI would be monitoring it, but he didn’t care.

Drake answered, putting it on speaker. “I’ve done what you wanted. Alicia Fairstone is being arrested for the murder of Anton Lavelle. She’s going to lose everything: her social standing, her reputation, will probably spend the rest of her life in prison. Now let my mother and Hart go.”

“That’s not what I asked for,” came Kasanov’s measured reply. “I want her life in my hands. Just as my grandson’s life was in hers. I want her to see my face as she dies, just as my grandson saw hers.”

“You know I can’t do that. Besides, dying is too easy, too quick. Too private. A woman like Alicia, public humiliation is the ultimate torture.” Drake held his breath, waiting for Kasanov’s reply. Hoped he’d played the psychopath correctly. A man like Kasanov… who knew?

“Maybe. Still, I asked for a woman’s life and that’s not what you delivered. Hardly worth two lives in return, now is it, Detective Drake?”

“It’s the best you’re going to get. Release Hart and my mother and you’ll have a chance to get away before the FBI finds you.”

“Do you really think I care about the FBI? Or even escaping with my life? This is about family, Detective Drake. This is about securing a future. You and me, we are meaningless.”

Drake blinked in surprise. Psychopaths only cared about themselves, about gratifying their own twisted needs. What kind of game was Kasanov playing?

“Then let my family go.” The words came out choppy as Drake tried and failed to keep his emotion out of them.

Kasanov laughed. “I’ll let one go. You choose. Your mother or Dr. Hart?”

“You sonofabitch—”

“You have ten seconds, Detective Drake. Who will go free?”

“I can’t—” Drake’s fist closed so tight around the phone he thought he might crack it. Or hurl it across the room in frustration. Jimmy stepped closer, but Drake waved him off.

“Your mother or Dr. Hart?” Kasanov’s voice was calm, clinical. As if the choice were obvious.

Jimmy scribbled a note and held it up for Drake.
Don’t play his games. Hang up.

Drake squeezed his eyes shut, considered it. But no way could he take the chance that they’d lose Kasanov—and with him both Hart and Muriel.

Hart’s face filled his vision. He knew what she would want, what she would tell him to do. It didn’t make it any easier.

“Time’s up, Detective Drake. Who will it be?”

“My mother.” The words emerged strangled and twisted with pain. “Let my mother go.”

“Very well. We’ll be in touch. I’ll say good-bye to Dr. Hart for you.”

Kasanov hung up.

Drake’s entire body trembled with rage as he stared down at the now blank screen. What had he done?

DESPITE PADDY’S PLEADING
, the Brits gave him nothing to do as they planned his journey back into occupied France except to sit on his bum and dream of Rosa and what might be happening to her.

As he tossed and turned later that night, try as he might, he couldn’t banish the image of her face, flushed with emotion, when he last saw her. He’d thought she was angry with him, now he realized it was fear that had colored her features. And yet, still she’d gone, raced through the night into the arms of the enemy.

For the sake of six hundred strangers. For Paddy.

He stifled a groan and took another sip of the Laphroaig he’d stolen from Archer’s cabinet. Not as smooth as Jamieson, but it would do in a pinch. Bloody poms sitting here in the lap of luxury compared to what their brethren in Europe or back home had. The war was a game to them, played long-distance; they had no idea what real war meant. He doubted if Archer or any of his staff had ever had a ship torpedoed out from under them, ever been shot at, ever had to run and hide for their lives.

And these were the men the world was relying upon to stop the bloody Krauts and their madman, Hitler?

That thought called for another drink. Slowly the whiskey wound its way through his frazzled and frayed nerves, finally allowing him to sleep. In his dreams, he relived the night he and Rosa had—their one and only night. It was only five days ago, but a thousand years could pass and he would never forget it.

The bittersweet memory lulled him to sleep, tears warming his cheeks.

<<<>>>

DRAKE AND JIMMY
took turns pacing the Commander’s office. The Commander herself, along with their fellow detectives, worked what little leads they had out in the bullpen, occasionally poking their heads into the office and offering what reassurance they could.

Bottom line, no one could find Natasha Mulo or even any trace that she or Anton Lavelle had existed before their arrival in Pittsburgh five months ago. More interestingly, it appeared Anton’s death might not be totally accidental. Alicia’s account of the hit-and-run was that Anton was already down, he and his bike sprawled on the ground, when she rounded the blind corner and ran over him.

Before Drake had time to process that information—had someone discovered Anton’s connection with Kasanov and targeted him?—his phone rang.

“There’s a package waiting for you,” came a man’s voice. Not Kasanov. “The Coretti warehouse in the strip district.”

“Let me talk to Hart.” His only answer was the sound of a dial tone. “Son of a bitch!” He threw the phone across the room, almost hitting Jimmy as he came through the door. “Let’s roll,” Drake said, moving past Jimmy.