The Coil (29 page)

“Threats are a waste of time. I have a solution for you. You have a retired agent named Elizabeth Sansborough. I expect you recognize the name.”

Jaffa felt as if he were standing at the edge of a bottomless void. The man
did
know, because the Carnivore's only child was Liz Sansborough. Jaffa's life of service was over. His work, his wife, his children—gone. He had expected this day to come, despite the Carnivore's near-mythical secrecy. Someday, someone would find out he had hired an assassin to terminate his children's grandfather.

The man said, “Am I correct, Walter, that she came to your attention recently?”

He recalled a minor report that she might have activated herself. But that was for operations. Still, as the question lingered in his ears, he began to hope. This bastard wanted to make a deal.

“Yes,” Jaffa said cautiously.

“Her father left files. A complete record. You're in there, Walter. In detail.”

“No!”

“If you do exactly as I say, your file will be destroyed.”

Paris, France

Simon parked two blocks away, closer than he considered prudent, but he was in a hurry and worried about Sarah. As he got out, shapeless forms with the parched voices of addicts whispered pleas from the night's shadows. A bar door opened, and laughter and cigarette smoke billowed out. The muggy air was clogged with the odors of dust and cooling asphalt.

He wanted no problems to slow him, but the night had a ragged feel to it, as if anything desperate could happen. He pulled a bouquet of wilted flowers from a trash bin, snapped on his sunglasses, and headed off into the night with a vacant smile, as if he were mentally unbalanced. He carried the flowers in front in both hands, like an upright corpse. With luck, he would look deranged enough, or dangerous enough, that the locals would figure he was not worth their trouble.

A pack of young men covered with tattoos and body piercings advanced as if they owned the sidewalk, their expressions dark and angry. The hair on Simon's arms rose, and he studied them for weapons, but they moved past as if he were invisible.

Two blocks later, he turned into an alley that was a narrow canyon between towering tenements. A ribbon of moonlight ran the length of the cobblestones to the other end, while the shadows on either side were black and forbidding.

He lobbed the flowers into a garbage can and advanced, his nerves afire. When Sarah emerged from a shadow, smiling that million-watt grin of hers, his heart beat faster. There was just enough light that her short hair glowed like a halo around her face. As she hurried toward him, paralleling the stream of moonlight, he imagined he could see that sexy mole that was so tempting at the corner of her mouth.

Suddenly, she was running.

Surprised, he felt himself open his arms with a guilty thrill. His steps quickened, eager. He wanted to pull her to him, inhale her scent, hold her—and saw she was no longer smiling. Her eyes had narrowed, and her right hand hung low at her side, urgently signaling:
Keep coming forward. Keep doing what you're doing.

Her gaze was locked on something beyond his shoulder. He started to look, but she swung her finger left and right—
no.
A chill shot up his spine. The skin on the back of his neck puckered. He listened but heard nothing unusual.

He kept up his pose, his arms still wide. “Darling!”

Sarah lunged past.

Simon heard her shoulder bag hit the pavement. He whirled as her foot lashed up and knocked the arm of a man who had been just six feet behind. Something shiny—a stiletto—dropped with a metallic clatter and skittered into the moonshine.

Simon started to rush to help, but she deflected a punch and chopped left and right with paralyzing sword-hand strikes into either side of the man's neck. Simon was amazed at her skill and speed. She had the advantage of surprise, but that did not explain the professional level of her execution. There was no pause, no motion wasted. If she had hesitated or made the tiniest mistake, she could be dead—and so might he.

As the man toppled backward, the moonlight caught his face. Christ. It was that bastard from Jackie Pahnke's photo store again. Simon ran to him.

Panting, Sarah stared down. “Who is he?”

As he told her, Simon snapped up the stiletto, stepped on the blade, and broke it from the handle. He kicked the halves into a trash pile. “I saw him again in a photo shop right before I drove here.” He stared at her sleeve. The cloth was wet and dark—blood? Now her face revealed fatigue and tension, hidden earlier by her big smile. She had put on a great show. “You're hurt.” He gestured at her arm, concerned.

“It's nothing.” Liz pushed her throbbing wound from her mind.
If it's not life-threatening, don't think about it
. What was important was that Simon was here. She looked him up and down, savoring his rangy body and handsome face, his smashed nose and intelligent eyes. She was growing fond of him.

He nodded, scanned the alley once, and crouched to search the man's pockets. He would argue with her about her arm later.

She knelt beside him. “So he followed you.”

“Looks like it,” Simon admitted. “I never spotted a thing.”

“He's good.”

Simon found no identification or clue to as who the killer was or why he was in pursuit. He pulled a Glock from the fellow's shoulder rig and checked the ammo clip. It fired 9-mm Parabellum cartridges. The clip was full. He set the Glock beside him and inspected the man's shoes. They had crepe soles, which explained why his tread had been so quiet. When Simon looked across at her, she was staring at the weapon.

The gun was a Glock 19, a self-cocking automatic that was reliable, compact, and relatively lightweight, because some 40 percent of it was molded from plastics. Police and military forces around the world, including in the United States, favored it or the Glock 17L, essentially the same weapon but with a longer barrel.

As she stared, Liz felt a wrenching moment of indecision, the final few seconds in which one could still rethink one's position. In the end, it was simple: All violence was wrong. She knew the future—if there were to be a future—would be without violence, no matter how distant that future might be. But the future was also now. What she—what any of us did
now
created the future.

Torn, she felt again the pain of her guilt about Sarah. Tish Childs. Mac. The dead men in the Eisner-Moulton warehouse. The dean and his wife. Kirk.

“What is it?” he frowned, puzzled.

“Give me the gun.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “Changed your mind?”

“Seems so.” Her tone was emotionless. She took it, hefted it in one hand, and turned it from side to side, getting the feel. “It'll do.”

As Simon watched, she rose to her feet, and her gaze and the pistol moved effortlessly together, as if they were connected. She was standing sentry without being asked. He noted this as the memory of her karate attack lingered in his mind. For a journalist, even one who had received special training at the CIA's ultra-secret, highly regarded Ranch, she was remarkably capable.

On the dark alley floor, the man moaned. “He's coming around,” she said.

“Time to have a chat with the bugger,” Simon agreed.

A second, less insistent moan followed. Keeping his voice low, Simon demanded, “Who are you? Who do you work for?”

The man had a face that seemed untouched by emotion, almost unused. Simon bent to shake him, when suddenly Sarah's palm rammed Simon's back, catching him by surprise. He sprawled onto his face, lying on top of the attacker.

Sarah dropped flat beside him and whispered, “Stay down!”

He turned to look at her. She was staring back toward the alley's mouth, where he had entered. The Glock followed her line of sight to a stout woman who slipped along a shadowy tenement wall as she pulled an Uzi from a shopping bag.

Without a word, Simon carefully rolled off the semiconscious man and aimed his Sig Sauer. Behind the woman, street traffic continued to hum past.

He whispered, “She doesn't look dangerous.”

“She's a professional killer,” she whispered back. “She makes herself look soft and overweight, but that's muscle. She carries a shopping bag and acts like an ordinary housewife so she can lull people, make them careless.”

The woman had not bothered to change her appearance—the same cropped brown hair, the same red-brown lipstick, the same serviceable trousers, blouse, and jacket. She advanced carefully, searching for something…or someone.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“She's been surveilling me off and on, and I'm pretty sure she killed Mac. She's working for the people who have the files.” And she had led the team that had kidnapped Sarah and Asher a second time.

On the cobblestones, the man twitched. Definitely returning to consciousness.

“So…if by chance she's with our friend here—” Simon began.

“They know you're looking for the files. Remember, my cell was bugged. Whoever has the files has decided he needs to wipe you, too.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.”

The man's eyes fluttered. As soon as Simon pressed the muzzle of his Sig Sauer against the man's temple, one hand shot up to grab it.

Simon cocked the trigger. “Hear that, bloke?” he asked softly. “That's your last memory before your brain blows.”

The eyes flew open. Saw Simon. Checked out the gun. His expression did not change. He lowered his hand. “We need to talk.”

“Don't talk. Whisper,” Simon ordered. “Who sent you?”

Liz rose to a crouch and focused on the woman as she continued to prowl toward them. She was hugging the tenements now, where the shadows were densest. The only reason she was visible was because she was erect and moving, reflecting just enough moonlight to be seen by anyone who knew where to look. The traffic and distant music were loud enough to cover their whispers, and she apparently had not yet heard or seen them where they hunched in dark shadow.

“It's just what she said,” the man told Simon, lowering his voice again as Simon pushed the gun deeper into his temple. “We know you're working together.”

“You didn't answer the question. Who are you? Who's paying you?”

With no change in expression, without a tic of muscle to warn them, the man's mouth snapped open, and he bellowed, “Beatrice!” He rolled away from Simon's gun, kicked Simon, grabbed his ankles, and threw him. Not only solidly built, he was strong, and this time
he
had the advantage of surprise.

As Simon lunged back, the man ducked and yanked the knife from the ankle sleeve under Simon's trousers. Now he was armed. At the same time, the woman yelled, “Malko!” She opened fire and ran toward the sound of his shout. Her bullets exploded into the cobblestones, searching for them, sending chips flying like razors.

All of this happened in seconds. As Simon kicked and searched for an angle to fire his Sig Sauer, he roared, “Sarah!”

Liz felt paralyzed where she crouched, one knee up, both hands aiming the Glock. Then a voice inside her mind spoke calmly,
You made a decision. You don't have time to agonize
. She squeezed the trigger.

The Glock's kick sent a battery shock up her arms, and something inside her shattered. A piece of her that she valued vanished, but her bullet hit Beatrice dead-on. Beatrice continued two more steps, then slumped as if her spine were dust.

As she pitched forward, the man punched a fist straight into Simon's belly and slammed the other up into his jaw. Simon collapsed, and Liz whirled the Glock to shoot again. The man kicked it out of her hand and ran.

Swearing, Liz scooped up the Glock and gave chase, but the man named Malko was next to the tenements, in the deepest shadows. Before she could close in, he disappeared into the darkness, a phantom swallowed by the night. She spun on her heel, raced to the woman, and rolled her over. The chest was bloody. No pulse. For a moment, Liz looked at the dead face and wondered who she really was. Whether this woman, Beatrice, had a husband, children, a life.

Then she shook the thought off. She would mourn later. Now there was a job to finish, a blackmailer to stop, and Sarah and Asher to find. Liz searched the woman but found nothing useful. She grabbed the woman's Uzi, ran back, snatched up the Sig Sauer, and bent over Simon.

“Simon?”

His eyes were closed. His right foot was tucked up under his left thigh in an unnatural position, and his head was twisted to the side. Blood glistened on the cobblestones.

Terrified, Liz pressed her ear against Simon's chest. When she heard his strong heartbeat, she sat up and wiped moistness from her eyes.
Thank God.
She glanced around. No sign where their attacker had gone.

Simon groaned. Liz studied him. His wavy hair was a disaster, his big features splotched and dirty, and his sports jacket and trousers rumpled. She smiled. “Look at you,” she murmured. “Still the family bad boy.” She straightened his leg and adjusted his head gently. Then she shook his shoulder roughly. “Simon, wake up! Wake up, dammit. We've got to get out of here!”

He opened his eyes and groaned again. “Bloody hell. I screwed up proper.”

“You did fine. We were both distracted, and he knew what he was doing. He beat me, too. Ran off before I could stop him. Can you walk?” As he swayed up to his feet, she watched the alley, wondering again how Malko had found Simon here.

“I hope so. I'm too banged up to drive.” He holstered his Sig Sauer and knife, then limped off, heading for the other end of the alley. “Better we go out this way, in case we get any more visitors,” he explained.

She joined him. “Your mind appears to be working fine, but your wobbling feet indicate drunkenness.”

“I wish. Do something useful, will you? Shoot out that blasted streetlight.”

“When we're closer. My aim's not reliable. It's been too long.”

“Looked bloody reliable to me. Dropped Beatrice with one shot.”

“Trust me. It was pure luck.”

Above them, the tenements towered seamlessly one after another, not a breath of air between. On high alert, Liz kept the Glock in her hand and tucked the Uzi into her purse. The grip still stuck out, but at least the weapon was less noticeable.

At the mouth of the alley, they peered out. The street was mixed residential-commercial. The bars exploded with noise every time a door opened. Rusty heaps jammed the curbs, sandwiched together as if by a Goliath's putty knife. Traffic rolled past. Pedestrians walked, strolled, and staggered.

Simon was quiet, still collecting himself. When there was a break in pedestrians, Liz shot out the streetlight, and they hurried off. It was only a matter of time until he bombarded her with questions. Right now, she had a large one for him.

“I've been thinking about the guy with the stiletto,” she said, keeping her voice low as she scanned the neighborhood. “Beatrice called him Malko. If Malko had a team to back him up, they should've been around to help when I jumped him. But there was only her. Since he called to her, I assume he was expecting her.”

She glanced at Simon, saw he was staring at her.

He looked away quickly. “You have a theory?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she continued. “Maybe the reason you didn't see him surveilling you was because he really
was
out of sight. And maybe he didn't need a full team, because he could surveil you alone…because he or someone else planted a tracking device on your car, the way the kidnappers did with my cell.”

Simon shook his head. “No way. No one went near the car before he found me. No…” Then he remembered. “Damn and damn again. The bicyclist.” He described the “accident” in Chantilly. “The kid fooled me, but it was that guy—Malko—who must've set it up. He could've tailed me to the village from the baron's château.”

“These people are damn good, and they have one hell of a lot more people power than we do.” She sensed he was staring at her again. She turned quickly, caught him in the act, and had an uneasy feeling she knew what was on his mind.

“What?” she demanded.

He hesitated, then said slowly, “You look damned comfortable with a weapon in your hand. You took out Beatrice with one shot, even though she was running. You know far more than the rudiments of karate. You're good at tactics and execution, too. You play a role believably—you didn't miss a beat when we interviewed Jimmy Unak. And now you went straight for a tracking device to explain how the killer found me. Not to mention, of course, that you're injured and trying to ignore it.”

Inwardly, she sighed. “I'm sure there's a point somewhere in your rambling.”

“As if you didn't know.” He gave a short smile. “Let's think. If I'd wanted to send someone after the Carnivore's files, it would've been his daughter, not the niece who barely knew him. Obviously, Liz is the better-informed, far more experienced hunter, not Sarah. At the same time, why are you so very good at what Liz was trained for? True, you've had some tradecraft, but not enough to explain your expertise.”

He watched her face for a reaction. Her eyes were dark pools, unreadable.

Finally, she murmured, “All right. Say it, Simon.”

“You're Liz.”

She heaved a sigh. “You always were a little rat.” She smiled. When she saw his expression, she chuckled. “I was going to tell you now anyway.”

He felt himself flush. “Bloody hell, you
are
Liz. You could've let me in on this before. Damn irritating of you.” He scowled. “And I told you about my crush. Of all the underhanded tricks. You should've trusted me!”

“I couldn't trust anyone. But now you're beginning to impress me.”

“Thanks. I think.”

Paris's two-tone police sirens wailed in the distance. They traded glances and broke into a lope. Someone had reported the gunshots in the alley.

She studied him as they rounded a corner onto a wide, busy boulevard. “Level with me, Simon. Is MI6 after the files, too?”

“You believe I'm lying?”

“I know how agencies work. The service and the mission first.
Always
first.”

He pulled her into the shadow of a plane tree and poked a finger at her. “We've got to get this straight. I could jolly you with another smart remark, or we could make an agreement right here, right now, that we're operating on a level field. I respect you…and you respect me. We work together as equals. Never mind my age, my attitude, or your being out of the game for five years. And no more lies.”

“Well, I can hold up my end. But eight years is a big difference. Remember, I changed your diapers. Think a kid like you can hold up your end?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You haven't changed a whit. It's been a long time since anyone could irritate me and make me laugh at the same time.”

“Know what you mean. Let's move. I want to tell you about Sarah and Asher.” They walked quickly on.

Yes, he made mistakes, like worrying about Beatrice and her when he should have been focused on Malko. And he was flippant, occasionally inappropriate, and much too interested in his own sex appeal. On the other hand, he was fearless when necessary, smart as hell, and a decent sort.

With cool, detached tones, she related the highlights of the attack on her in Santa Barbara, Sarah's kidnapping, and her flight to Paris with Mac. She did not bother to tell him about the movie in Santa Barbara yet, and she glossed over London, since he knew most of that anyway.

“Jesus,” he breathed, stunned. “So that's why you've been chasing the Carnivore's files. You needed them to ransom Sarah. They're damn bloody fiends to have shot Asher just to make the movie believable!”

“Yes.” She heard the bitterness in her voice and did not care. “I can see why they took him from the hospital later—it upped the ante, keeping me on track. Except, of course, it didn't work, because I figured out what was really going on when I found Mac and the bugs in my cell. That's when I decided to follow Beatrice.” She described the team assault on the Eisner-Moulton warehouse. “I actually saw Sarah and Asher for a few seconds. Oh, Simon, it was horrible. They could've been killed so easily, and God knows whether they're still alive.”

He inhaled and shook his head. There was a distant look on her face that he could not quite read at first. Then he understood: She was not only furious with the kidnappers but with herself, and feeling terribly guilty.

“We'll find Sarah and Asher again,” he said confidently, although he could not see how. “Have you told anyone else about this?”

“Who could I possibly tell?” She scanned the street. “And I haven't given you all the details yet. How much farther? We need to get away from here.” Her wound was on fire, and she felt drained. Still, she had survived, but had Sarah and Asher?

He watched as she clasped her arm to her chest. “My thought exactly.” She was definitely no whiner. In fact, she was rather admirable. “The car's in the next block.”

The Peugeot waited in the glow of a street lamp, squeezed between other parked cars. They stepped into a doorway to observe the street. A sharp stench of urine arose from the corners beside their feet. They studied the sidewalks for anyone who looked out of place, who showed too much interest in the car, or who was hanging around alone, busying himself or herself with the customary cigarettes, chain-smoking to cover the fact that a stakeout was in progress.

Simon found himself glancing at Liz. Now that he knew who she was, whatever feelings he'd had about her seemed an eternity ago. Still, there was something about their standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark, silently surveilling in unison, that seemed especially familiar, as if they had done this many times. He liked that, then instantly dismissed the thought.

“I've been wondering why the blackmailer went to the trouble of taking Sarah and Asher,” she said. “The only reason I can see is leverage. He made no attempt to kill them.”

“Maybe it's not about them or you at all. Maybe he has a reason we can't see.” He pressed the side of his wristwatch. A light flicked on. Although it was faint, it was enough to illuminate the dial.

“How long have we been here?” Liz asked.

“Fifteen minutes. If you're right about the tracking device, that'd explain why no one's watching. Malko figures he can pick me up again whenever he wants.”

A police car rolled past. They tensed until it disappeared down the street.

He memorized the plate. “Might as well give it a go. Cover me.” Simon slipped out, dashed through traffic, and circled the Peugeot, inspecting. Everything looked normal.

He nodded at her, jumped in, and turned on the engine. She ran, dodged, and slid in next to him. He gunned the sports car out into traffic. Seven blocks later, they were in a new neighborhood. While he parked, another police car with a different license plate cruised past—and pulled to the curb four cars ahead.

Edgy, they watched as it parked. But the two gendarmes were on a mission of their own. They hurried toward a brightly lit bistro on the corner, hiking up their trousers with anticipation, and vanished inside. This bistro was off the beaten track, a good spot for a quiet
bock,
where no one would trouble them or report them.

“They'll be there awhile,” Liz decided. Relieved, she rolled down her window.

Without a word, Simon got out, removed his flashlight from the bag in the trunk, crawled under the right front fender, and found a miniature GPS tracking device where the bicyclist had skidded.

He slid back out and showed it to her. “Good guess.” His face was irritated.

She nodded. “Let's get out of here.”

“Not quite yet.”

“Simon,” she warned.

But he was already trotting away through the shadows. He slowed, waiting for two women who were holding hands to pass. At last, he bent to adjust his trousers. He glanced up, saw no one was looking, and stuck the tracking device onto the undercarriage of the police car.

Grinning, he jogged back and jumped in behind the steering wheel.

Liz was laughing. “I wish I'd thought of that!”

“Thank you.” He let out a hoot of laughter, started the car, and threw it into a
U
-turn, heading back into the center of Paris.

As their laughter subsided, she curled up, her cheek resting against the seat's back cushion, studying him as he drove. Behind the facade of carelessness and youth, he was turning out to be a skilled, imaginative agent.

He said, “Talk to me about the attack on you in Santa Barbara and Sarah's kidnapping. I'm still trying to understand. It sounds as if they were simultaneous. Both groups went into action at once, apparently without communicating.”

“Exactly. But they did communicate. The trigger seems to have been the advance publicity for my show on assassins, especially since a lot of the media reported that one would be the Carnivore. Of course, neither the blackmailer nor the kidnappers wanted me to reveal the Carnivore might've kept a record. At the same time, anyone chasing the files might think I had them or that I'd uncover them.”

“Which set Sarah's kidnapping and ransom into motion, I should think.” He frowned at her, then resumed his careful watch of traffic. “That warehouse where the kidnappers were holding Sarah and Asher would've been top secret. So how did the blackmailer find out about it? How did he know to send his people there?”

“You've just hit on a major problem for both groups. The ones that want the files—the kidnappers—have a traitor.”

His brows rose. “You have my full attention.”

“It's the only explanation for how the blackmailer has been able to stay one jump ahead of me a lot of the time. For how he could send janitors to kill me in Santa Barbara in order to stop the kidnappers' plan in Paris before it really got off the ground. For why the janitor in London had to beat up Tish to find out where I was going next.”

“So that's it. Some insider is feeding the blackmailer information, but not complete information. That explains why janitors weren't waiting for us at the Gare du Nord, and why Malko wasn't at the baron's château to kill me. If he were, he would've stepped in. Instead, he was there to protect the baron's murderer—Malko's boss, the blackmailer. So the people who want the files are holding back information in an effort to smoke out their Judas while keeping us on task.”