* * *
The ping of a message roused me from my doze.
Arrived safe & sound at hotel. Hope children behaving. See you day after tomorrow. Mark xxx
Very domestic, but that mention of children meant he’d met up with Granius. I forced myself to check the fridge and find something to eat. I was about to take a first bite out of a pizza hot from the oven when a second message pinged in.
Just seen somebody I know from work in the lobby. Don’t think she saw me. Will catch up with her at dinner. xxx
Thank the gods. Granius’s hunch had paid off. I checked the flight schedule. They could even be back tonight.
* * *
A harsh screech. Repeated. My phone. I reached for it in the pitch darkness. Missed. A clunk on the floor. Silence. I found the switch for the bedside light, retrieved the phone and blinked at its fierce light. Four-thirty. It screamed at me again.
‘Hello, bonjour.’
‘Thank the gods. It’s Granius. We’ve—’
‘Wait one.’ I grabbed the scrambler from the bedside table and plugged it in.
‘Lesson one. Don’t talk on an open line, Aquila Two. Remember I told you that?’
‘Yes, but this is a dire emergency.’
‘Okay, calm down and let me speak to Aquila One.’
‘I can’t. He’s in hospital.’
‘What?’ I leapt up. ‘Tell me everything.’ I drew my parka across my shoulders in the chill of the early morning unheated apartment.
‘We spotted her in the hotel. She was eating by herself. Fla— Aquila One sat down on the chair opposite. She looked shocked. Aquila One and the target left their table and went upstairs in the lift, second floor, according to the light over the lift. I raced up the stairs, but saw nobody in the corridor there. I walked up and down both arms. It’s L-shaped. The lift is at the corner. Nothing for twenty minutes. Then two guys came out of a room with a janitor’s trolley. Wrong at that time of night and one of them was making a real effort at pushing it.’ His voice was trembling. He cleared his throat. ‘Aquila One hadn’t called or messaged me which I thought was wrong as well. There was no sign of him. I guessed it had to be him in that trolley. They looked like real toughs. I couldn’t—’
‘It’s okay, Aquila Two. It’s okay not to confront overwhelming opposition.’ Oh gods, I should have been there, not this untried and jittery clerk. ‘Well done for staying calm in trying circumstances. Now, what happened next?’
‘I walked past them and went down the stairs to the basement and hid behind a boiler. The two men and the trolley arrived and they bumped the trolley out to the garage. I crept forward and from the gap of the open garage door I saw them open the trolley bin and lift a body out and haul it into the boot of a hatchback. Then they pushed the trolley into a corner, stripped off their coveralls and took the lift back upstairs.’
I heard him gulp. ‘Keep it together, Aquila Two. And next?’
‘I grabbed the car lock code with my sensor, opened the boot. It was Aquila One. He was unconscious and his face was beaten in.’ His voice took on a higher note and became breathy. ‘I thought he was dead! I was frightened of moving him in case I hurt him or something was broken, but I was even more frightened of those toughs coming back.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I picked him up over my shoulder and staggered over to our rental car and drove him to the nearest emergency room.’
‘Well done, Aquila Two. What did you say there?’
‘I said I’d seen some people beating him up. When they left, I put him in the car and brought him to the hospital. Then I had to say it all over again to the civil police. Gods!’
‘Okay, go and get some rest. No, wait, collect your things and get on the next plane back. We’re dealing with some tough nuts here and you need to be out of the way.’
‘What about Aquila One?’
‘Give me the name of the hospital and I’ll get somebody there.’
8
I entered the Eastern United States through Washington, the easiest entry port. Maybe they were more cosmopolitan than other EUS cities because the federal government was situated there. Passport control had been easy at Sterling-Dulles Airport; I had a shiny Quebec visa that was not given out lightly. The border control officer looked almost bored as he handed me my passport back. I released my breath; I had made it into the EUS. In the transit area I picked up a hopper to New York. The cold clear sky meant the view over the Chesapeake was bright and open. A flock of wild geese wove and flowed below our graceless metal bird. I almost relaxed.
But too soon we circled over the bays around New York. As I stood in line for the Autonomous City of New York police to check my papers, I was sure they would hear my heart pounding like a jackhammer. I’d never thought about it when I lived there – it had seemed normal then – but since I’d left, I’d learned as an outsider about how paranoid they were, how jealous of their independence within the EUS. So we all had to go through another bureaucratic control.
‘Why have you flown in from the République Québecoise? And via Washington, Miss Jackson?’
‘It was the cheapest deal, officer.’ I smiled at him. Not full teeth; they didn’t like that. ‘I need to look after my pennies.’
‘Okay. And what were you doing in Quebec?’
I glanced around, then leaned in and said in a low voice, ‘I was flying back from Europe after working there as an au pair but I went to see my boyfriend first in Montreal. My mom doesn’t like him. She was suspicious and wanted me to come straight here, but I told her the Paris–Montreal was cheaper, which it was.’
‘Ha!’ he said. He didn’t smile, but his hard neutral expression softened. I decided not to volunteer anything more. He waved me on. I grabbed my papers as he shoved them back at me, and left as fast as I could. I was sure he was staring after me but when I glanced back, he was harassing the next pour soul.
I caught the airport shuttle into the city which dropped me off in Longacre Square. Almost blinded by the flashing advertisements, I dived into the subway, bought a seven-day pass and made for my budget hotel two blocks west of Connaught Avenue. I was within five minutes’ walk of my old office at Bornes & Black and over four years away from my arrest by the FBI when I’d still been Karen Brown, EUS citizen.
* * *
I napped for an hour then just before seven that evening I made my way back to Connaught Avenue to ambush Hayden Black, my old boss. He strolled out of his glass-fronted office building as if he were on a country walk, but still covered the ground as fast as any younger man. He was English. Proper English, not one of the 1860s left-behinds. Had he changed much since I’d left? His old-fashioned sports jacket and pants made him look like a crusty old guy from a black and white movie, just as he had been before.
If he still lived in the same apartment he would head down the avenue a hundred metres, then dive into the subway. I followed him down the steps and touched his arm as he stood on the platform. He turned, an eyebrow raised and a freezing look in his eyes.
‘Don’t try anything, young woman. I’m not an easy mark.’
‘C’mon Hayden, it’s me, Karen.’
The train arriving drowned his coughing attack and I pulled him on board.
* * *
We didn’t go to his apartment, but just one stop up the subway to his club. In the anonymous, almost hidden Georgian building, he ushered me through the tall mahogany doors, through a lobby and up a short flight of stairs. Opening a plain door with a brass plaque stating ‘Members’ Private Room’ and a red/green light panel, he ushered me in and flicked a switch to show ‘Occupied’. Inside were three centuries-old chairs, bookcases and books. It smelled of leather and wood. Hayden crossed the room and poured two drinks from the tray.
‘Now tell me what the hell is going on.’ He handed me a glass of pale amber liquid.
‘First, I apologise for startling you in the subway.’ He raised one eyebrow. I felt like a rookie account exec agai
n, the warm flush rising up my neck. I took a sip of my drink. ‘I’m here on a mission to rescue somebody and there’s been a hitch.’
‘What a strange world you live in now, Karen. No, you’re Carina now, of course. How do you think I can help you? I’m far too old to leap around playing spies.’
I winced at that, but I suppose that’s what I was to him.
‘I just need somebody unconnected to check a friend in hospital, to see if he’s okay.’
‘Can’t your legation do that?’
‘We’re in deep undercover and we’ll be gone by the time they can get somebody here from Washington.’ I gave him what I hoped was a winsome smile and stretched my hand out. ‘You won’t be in any danger, Hayden. I just want to know he’s okay.’
* * *
The text message came through early next morning:
Mark Lombardi conscious. Broken rib, bruising. Reassured him you well. Estimated discharge teatime today. Regards. Hayden.
So I had less than twenty-four hours to find Vibiana, extract her, pick up Flavius and get us all out. Fabulous.
I passed via Macy’s womenswear and now looked like an out-of-town manager with a conference ahead of her. I went back to the hotel where Flavius had seen Vibiana.
I enquired about ‘Mark Lombardi’, my co-worker, and put on my concerned colleague act. After some persuasion, the desk clerk admitted they’d had a call from the hospital and were holding his room against his credit card. Eventually, the clerk took me up to Flavius’s room which we were both shocked to see had been rifled; clothes and papers everywhere.
‘Omigod, what happened here?’ I ran into the bathroom as if expecting to find somebody or something. Bottles, razor and brushes scattered over the basin and floor. ‘His papers for the conference?’ I picked up papers from the floor, sat at the plastic laminated desk and gathered them together. They weren’t his real ones, just some random stuff for his cover as Mark Lombardi. Assuming a concerned expression on my face, I pretended to look through them, then turned to the clerk.
‘I’ll check everything’s there and report back to the conference director. There are people in our industry that will do anything to steal our processing secrets, but this is terrible! I’ll pack Mark’s things up, shall I?’
The clerk hesitated. ‘We should report this to the police.’
‘Well, I have a pretty good idea who did this and I’ll be taking it up with him direct. Why don’t we avoid the fuss and keep it between ourselves, hm?’
He glanced at me, at the mess and back to me. I fished a fifty-dollar bill out of my purse.
‘This should cover any cleaning expenses,’ I said, knowing full well the cleaner would get zilch. He pocketed the bill, nodded and left.
I took a deep breath and ran my eyes round the room. The open unit had no hiding places. Flavius’s carry-on was on the floor, lid gaping and empty. The laundry bag contents, such as they were, made a small pile on the floor. I gathered and folded his clothes, stowing them in his case. The toiletries and laundry followed. The papers were for show, but I slid them into the netted section in the case lid. Now my proper search would begin.
Flavius would have avoided the obvious places: toilet cistern, underside of drawer in desk unit, the room safe. Nothing in or under the bed. Nothing hanging in a bag outside the window as they were sealed. Surely he hadn’t been carrying the documents on him when he was attacked?
My heart sank. Then I spotted a gap, a tiny gap, in the wooden housing shielding the lights. It ran across the wall above the desk. Hitching my shirt up, I clambered onto the desk. Taped to the inside of the panel was a slim, long plastic baggie, untouched. I ripped it off and opened it. Vibiana’s Roma Novan passport, the handkerchief and photocopies, a code sensor/scrambler and a wad of dollars.
Thank Mercury!
I zipped up Flavius’s case, let the wheels down, closed the room door and made my way to the elevator. A light tingle crossed my shoulders as I waited. I retreated round the corner formed by the L-shaped corridors and took a couple of deep breaths. I didn’t know where that had come from but it was never wise to ignore that particular danger signal. A sound of a door closing near the lift. I risked peeking round the edge of the corner. Two heavies had just exited a room, one more sturdy than the other. I knew him instantly. Dubnus.
Merda.
I closed my eyes to try to blot out that terrible night when he’d tried to throw me off a rope bridge high in the Gemini Alps in the pitch dark. It was a training exercise. But he’d come at me intent on terminating me. It would be recorded as an ‘accident’. Unluckily for him, I’d been carrying my knives in a back waist holster. His face had never been the same and he’d been busted down to plain guard. He was one of the current legate’s clients, some sort of distant cousin. She was a crap patron to have let him try such a stupid thing, but she wouldn’t agree to Conrad’s recommendation to throw him out entirely. She’d just smirked at me the next time she’d bothered to attend the barracks. I’d refused to let Conrad take it to Imperatrix Silvia; that would have been snitching.
What the Hades was he doing here? He knew Flav was one of my Active Response Team and closest comrade-in-arms. Was he one of the heavies who had put him in the hospital?
9
I waited a long five minutes. Flavius’s case I abandoned in the corner. Grasping the sensor I’d found in his room, I looked to my left and right. Nobody. After three seconds the sensor flashed green against the keycard lock and I was in.
The two men had left, but the gods knew how long they’d be out. I scanned the room. Nothing out of the ordinary. No papers on the desk. On hangers a change of shirt and a jacket, underwear and socks in the shelf unit. I searched underneath and in the jacket pockets. A carry-on with straps like a backpack yielded nothing. I crouched down and felt under the drawer in the desk unit. A flat package, no, a black baggie taped under it. Oh, for the gods’ sake, I didn’t think even Dubnus could be so stupid.
I removed it gently and opened it. A new EUS passport with Vibiana’s photograph – so that was why she went through passport control so easily – a letter of credit on a private account at the Argentaria Prima, valid anywhere in the world, and boarding pass printouts for three people, including Vibiana, to Roma Nova for tomorrow evening’s flight. I photographed everything with my cell phone and shared it to my personal digital lockbox at home, then pushed it all back in the baggie and pressed it all back under the drawer bottom.
Were Dubnus and his buddy Vibiana’s guards or bodyguards? And who was the other man? I hadn’t recognised him and by now I knew most members of the home-based Guard, at least by sight.
I checked everything was back in its place and left, making sure nobody was around when I stepped into the corridor. I’d been in and out in twelve minutes. On a wild hunch, I knocked at some of the other doors in the corridor, but only got a gruff older male voice and a young American woman in reply. I grabbed the handle of Flavius’s case and went down via the stairwell to the lobby. Seeing no sign of Dubnus and friend, I settled myself in a corner seat to think what to do next. The desk clerk I had bribed glanced at me once and flushed. He looked away quickly as if I were a dirty smell under his nose. Perhaps I should ask to see the hotel register, but I doubted he would even look it up on his system for me. Despite the ‘cleaning’ money I gave him, he may have already regretted breaking the rules.
Where in Hades was Vibiana? Not at the hotel, it seemed, and not with Dubnus. I wheeled Flavius’s suitcase out of the lobby like a normal person, bumped it down the five steps and found the private business library Granius had identified six buildings down the street at number 38. It was a double-fronted Victorian, with bay windows and a recessed wood half-glazed door. I checked the case and my coat in the cloakroom in the front lobby, crossed the diagonally tiled floor and pushed through the swing doors.
The library itself was through the next set of swing doors, after the metallic arch of the scanner. But sitting on one of the padded b
enches at the side was Dubnus.
Crap.
He was flicking through a magazine. His buddy was standing, one hand in his pocket and the other playing with his cell phone. Thank Juno for my dyed hair. But would he still recognise me? I turned my shoulder away. Looking straight ahead and willing myself to walk at a normal pace instead of running like Hades, I went through the scanner. I released my breath and just remembered to smile at the attendant as if I had no cares in the world. I daren’t look back to see if they were watching me.
Luckily, my fake Quebec graduate student pass gave me access and I signed in as Lauren Jackson. There had only been one other guest in the register fifteen minutes before me. Dr Vibiana, Central University, Roma Nova. Hades! She was using her real name. Sloppy tradecraft in the extreme. She wasn’t an intelligence or security service officer, but we knew she had some competence from the way she could handle codes and her ability to deceive the legation guards and escape. This was a rookie mistake. Or was it deliberate?
I searched the whole library and couldn’t find her. Only a few of the tables were occupied and there was none with papers left without their owner. So where was she? I was still searching round when I saw the sign to the bathrooms.
* * *
I closed the washroom door silently after I’d entered. Only one stall door was closed. I crouched down to check under the door. Boots with red piping. I stood, leant against the wall and waited.
After a minute, the stall door opened. The skin round her eyes was puffed up and the rims red. She wiped her eyes and sniffed. Then she saw me and took a step back.
‘You must have been expecting me after your boyfriends out there beat the crap out of my colleague,’ I said.
She glanced away, then back at me with a sour expression on her face.
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