Evie had left a light on for her in the foyer. The soft eggshells and creams and taupes in which the apartment was done, the dark shine of the hardwood floors, the barely there scent of lemon furniture polish, was comfortably familiar.
For years now, this place had been home. Her bolt-hole. Her safe haven.
It didn’t feel safe anymore.
6
Same time, same day, other side of the ocean
In Lyon, France, not far from the banks of the Rhône, the headquarters of Interpol didn’t attract much in the way of notice. Tucked away on Arrondissement 6E amid the bustling environs of France’s second largest metropolitan area, it was surrounded by trees and a green lawn and an asphalt parking area complete with a rack for the red-fendered bicycles-for-rent that were the area’s newest rage in transportation. The building itself was blocky, square, glass-fronted, pleasant enough but nondescript. Even the logo above the main entrance, a globe surrounded by olive branches beneath plain block letters spelling out INTERPOL, was ordinary and uninteresting.
In that way, the building was misleading, Colin Rogan thought as, late for his meeting, he strode through the marble-floored lobby. It was the beating heart of the organization, a bustling hive with hundreds of employees, many of whom worked around-the-clock collating the most sensitive pieces of information on the most wanted, and dangerous, individuals alive. Its heavily encrypted databases tracked criminals around the world, linking crimes and perpetrators, establishing patterns, creating a highly effective virtual trail for law enforcement to follow without the barriers posed by politics or national borders. Its collections of fingerprints and DNA samples, facial photos, criminal and method of operation—MO—histories, most wanted lists and known aliases, were the most extensive in existence. By means of a program known as I-24/7, investigators in any member country could contact Interpol at any time and request assistance and/or access those databases. It was a one-stop shop in the world of international criminal investigations.
As a former MI6 agent and current tracking dog, among other things, Rogan did not feel particularly honored to be a part of it. He’d been freelancing since separating from Her Majesty’s Secret Service some four years previously. Present self-bestowed code name: spy-for-hire. He once had been part of that sliver of the Secret Intelligence Service—SIS—that no one was willing to admit existed. Known as the Increment, they were tasked with the spy agencies’ most clandestine black ops missions. The ones that would be illegal if some high-level bloke with the prime minister’s ear hadn’t gotten them secretly declared legal under certain highly specific conditions (like being ordered by the prime minister). The ones that would be disavowed by the British government if word of them ever got out. He’d gotten fed up with risking his ass for things he didn’t believe in while taking shit from politicians, and when the last highly classified mission had left a sour taste in his mouth, he’d gotten out. He and another disaffected spy had formed their own company, Cambridge Solutions, and he’d been going merrily about the business of making a (hella good) living when Laurent Durand had called with an urgent request for his help in finding Mason Thayer, former CIA operative, current international bad guy. Rogan owed Durand. They went way back. When he’d been a wet-behind-the-ears rookie spy, Durand had put his own career on the line to give him some highly classified information that had ended up saving his life. Durand needed his help, and he was there.
Once he’d been briefed on exactly what kind of international bad guy Thayer was, and how big a threat his activities posed to the world as they knew it, he wasn’t just on board for Durand. He was on board because finding Thayer was both stratospherically above Top Secret in classification, which meant gossipy official channels were out, and mission critical.
When he’d gotten the call that morning from one of Durand’s assistants about the urgent need to present himself at headquarters without delay, he’d been in Paris. It was not quite 5:00 a.m., he’d just gone to sleep for what had felt like the first time in days, and despite the vital nature of the mission he’d expressed the thought that if he’d wanted to come like a lapdog whenever he was called he would have stayed with MI6.
Then he’d been told about Groton.
He’d hopped on the A6 and endured the grind of the toll road, with its heavy traffic and endless parade of tourists who got in the EZ pass line without an EZ pass, thus clogging up the whole system, to Lyon. All told, he’d been on the road for almost six hours, with at most two hours’ sleep in the preceding thirty. His last meal had been the previous day’s grabbed-on-the-run fast-food dinner.
He was not, therefore, in the sunniest of tempers as he walked into Durand’s office.
“You heard that Alexander Groton was shot?”
As the administrative assistant who’d admitted him closed the door behind him, Rogan was greeted with that curt question by Durand himself. Durand was a one-time gendarme with forty-plus years of experience in criminal investigations, twenty-five of which had been spent with Interpol. Now head of the Organized and Emerging Crime Programme, which focused on international criminal networks, multinational organized crime and illicit markets, Durand was in his midsixties, burly, with thinning dark hair, narrow dark eyes below bushy gray brows, heavy features, and swarthy skin left scarred by a long-ago bout of acne. His gray suit was rumpled. What looked like a coffee stain marred the end of his yellow tie.
He was seated behind his desk when Rogan entered. The desk was large, metal with a wood veneer top, cluttered, and it appeared he’d been in the middle of perusing a folder that was open in front of him when interrupted. Behind him, a framed photo of a cabin cruiser on what Rogan thought must be the Seine took pride of place over a credenza. A woman and a boy waved from the deck of the boat. Family? Probably. Rogan had no idea what Durand’s personal circumstances were. He’d never needed to know.
Durand didn’t stand up or offer to shake hands as Rogan approached. Instead, he ran his eyes over Rogan’s leanly muscled, six-foot-three-inch frame, took in his well-tailored navy suit, white shirt and blue-striped tie, then condemned with a glance and a twitch of his brows the length of Rogan’s wavy black hair. Brushed back from his face after a hurried shower and shave, it curled against his shirt collar in back because he’d been too busy working to find the world-class criminal Durand had brought him on board to find to get a haircut.
Durand’s eyes met Rogan’s, which Rogan knew were bloodshot and shadowed from lack of sleep and thus possibly not the most confidence inspiring, and narrowed. Then Durand cast a significant look at the man standing to his left. Dressed in a black suit, that man had his back to the room and his hands clasped behind his back as he looked out one of the long, narrow windows at the leaden gray sky outside.
From the look of the clouds, rain was imminent.
“Yes,” Rogan replied. There was a clear warning in Durand’s gaze. Rogan kept his expression impassive as the unknown man turned.
“We’re interested in the whereabouts of Mason Thayer,” the second man said. He looked to be a few years older than Rogan’s own age of thirty-two. At a guess, Rogan would say thirty-six or -seven. A hair over six feet tall, a 180 or so pounds, muscular and fit. Reddish hair cut military style. Blue eyes, pale skin, blunt features. “Mr. Durand says that you’ve had the latest sighting of him.”
“And you are?” Rogan asked. The abruptness, the accent—American. If Rogan had to guess, he was going with CIA.
“Forgive me, I should have introduced you.” Durand rose at last and came out from behind his desk. His expression was now pleasant, his manner one of professional courtesy. “Steven Hanes, Colin Rogan. Special Agent Hanes is with the CIA.”
Called it. Rogan shook hands.
“You got here fast,” Rogan observed. The shooting of Groton had occurred approximately fifteen hours before. He did a quick calculation: sevenish hours to fly across the pond from the US East Coast, a
nd then—
“I was in Zurich,” Hanes said.
Under four hundred miles, less than an hour by air, four and a half hours by train or car. Assuming he was telling the truth about where he was coming from. In Rogan’s experience, everybody lied. The CIA simply made a policy of it.
“Ah,” Durand said. “Beautiful city, Zurich.”
Hanes looked impatient. “We have reason to believe that Thayer might be a person of interest in Groton’s murder. Groton had contact with Thayer less than two weeks ago. Our information is that you were present at the time. How is that?”
Durand’s gaze flicked to Rogan, and he gave a slight nod, directing Rogan to answer. The previous look Durand had given him had provided all the subtext Rogan needed: carefully.
“I tracked Thayer to Granite.” Granite was the code name for the CIA’s black site in Heiligenblut, Austria. “Groton was there when I arrived.”
“Along with Thayer?”
“Yes.”
“You had contact with both of them?”
Rogan remembered that there had been eyewitnesses: security guards, building staff, soldiers, a six-strong contingent of armed muscle that he presumed, from their actions, had been Groton’s personal team. “I had contact with Groton. I saw Thayer. I had no contact with him.”
“What happened?”
“I walked into a firefight. Apparently your people kidnapped Thayer’s wife and daughter in an attempt to lure Thayer to Granite. It worked. Only Thayer managed to fight his way out. I got there just as he escaped via helicopter with his family. He appeared to be severely wounded.”
“Do you have any idea where he was going?”
“No.”
“When you say his family, you are referring to—?”
“His wife and daughter. Did I mention that the daughter is seven years old? A little girl whom your people kidnapped.”
With a gesture, Hanes dismissed that as an unimportant detail. “Did you observe any contact between Groton and Thayer?”
“Other than Groton shooting at him? No.”
“You said that Thayer appeared to be severely wounded. How severely?”
“Severely enough that I question whether he can be considered a viable suspect in Groton’s murder.”
“Did you see Thayer’s wounds closely enough to be able to vouch for how severe they were?”
“No. My judgment’s based on how he reacted to them, what I could tell of their location and the amount of blood he was losing.”
“What was the nature of your contact with Groton?”
This was where Rogan had to be careful. Not to avoid revealing sensitive information that Durand didn’t want revealed, because that was easy enough. To avoid revealing sensitive information that Rogan considered personal and private and for his use alone. While at the same time remembering that there were eyewitnesses to the events he was recounting, which meant that he needed to stick very close to the truth.
Rogan said, “After observing Groton taking part in the unsuccessful gun battle with Thayer, I joined him in pursuit of Thayer’s fleeing associate, a woman. I was one of a group of seven or eight, I believe, including Groton. We were on snowmobiles, as was she. She ultimately was cornered, and after a brief conversation with Groton drove off a cliff rather than surrender. He tried to stop her by shooting at her. I fired a warning shot in Groton’s direction when he did that, because the woman was no good to us dead. But as I said, she drove off a cliff, so she ended up dead anyway. Groton left Granite almost immediately afterward, as did I.”
“This woman.” There was something in Hanes’s expression as he said the words—a barely perceptible sharpening of his eyes, a sudden tension in his jaw—that told Rogan that his interest in the subject was acute. Rogan’s interest in Hanes’s interest was suddenly acute, as well. “You said Groton had a conversation with her. What was it about?”
“I wasn’t able to overhear it.” Which was the truth. The roar of the snowmobiles’ engines had been loud, and until the very last minute, Rogan had been wearing a helmet.
Hanes’s face tightened with dissatisfaction at the answer. “Do you know the woman’s name?”
Sylvia. Only that, of course, was not her real name. Which Rogan didn’t know, so this answer also would be the truth. “No.”
He continued to watch Hanes closely, without, he hoped, giving any indication that that was what he was doing.
“Can you describe her?”
“Not with any degree of accuracy. I didn’t get a good look at her.” Not then. On their two previous encounters, however, he’d seen her extremely well: a beautiful blonde with a taste for sexy underwear—and a talent for even sexier kisses. Watching her plummet to her death had been more of a shock to his system than he was prepared to admit. Given her boss’s history, though, Rogan wasn’t by any means sure that she was actually dead. It annoyed him to realize how much he hoped she was not. “She was bundled up in a heavy coat and hat, and the light was fading.” He took a stab in the dark. “I would imagine that there’s surveillance footage of her from cameras in and around your facility. As well as footage of Thayer.”
“All surveillance footage from that day is missing.”
If Hanes was speaking the truth, that told Rogan a lot: whatever Groton’s business had been with Thayer—and Sylvia—Groton or some other operative with enough clout to order it done had wanted no photographic evidence of it. The CIA’s previous official reason for its interest in Thayer—that he was one of theirs who’d faked his own death and then turned criminal, thus besmirching the Agency, and now, its suspicion of his involvement in Groton’s killing—might, in Rogan’s opinion, support the degree of zealousness with which they had been and were pursuing him.
But given that Sylvia was no more than Thayer’s unimportant associate and no one was suggesting that she had been involved in Groton’s death, the CIA’s interest in her should have been minimal.
Hanes’s was not.
Rogan could see it in the other man’s eyes.
And if Hanes wasn’t telling the truth about the surveillance footage, that said something, too. At a minimum, that the CIA had an agenda that it wasn’t willing to share.
Either way, something was up.
Rogan continued to probe. “Eyewitnesses, then.”
Hanes shrugged. “You know how reliable eyewitnesses are.”
Yes, he did: not reliable at all. It was the first time that Rogan had ever considered it a plus.
Durand had been listening to this exchange with an attentive expression. Now he addressed Hanes, asking, “How can we help you?”
Hanes said, “My job is to determine if Thayer killed Groton, and the first step in doing that is to find Thayer.” He looked at Rogan. “I understand that you’ve been searching for Thayer, as well. I’d like you to share with me what you’ve learned, and to provide me with real-time updates of the progress of your search as it continues.”
Would you now? Rogan met his gaze full-on, and said, “Thayer’s managed to elude me thus far, so apparently nothing I’ve learned is of much value.”
Hanes’s lips tightened.
Durand said, “You can count on Interpol’s full cooperation, of course. We have already put out a Red Notice on Thayer, and we will follow up aggressively. You will be kept informed. Now, if you would like to move into one of our conference rooms, I will have our staff pull all the information we have on Thayer and bring it to you.” He walked to his office door and opened it, gesturing to Hanes that he should follow. Sticking his head out, he spoke to someone in the reception area. Rogan assumed it was the middle-aged man behind the desk he’d passed coming in. “Bender, take Special Agent Hanes to the Mitterrand Conference Room and get him—” he looked questioningly at Hanes “—coffee?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You have merely to tell Bend
er how you take it.”
Hanes nodded his thanks and walked out the door.
When Hanes was gone, Durand turned back to Rogan. Deep creases in the older man’s forehead and around his mouth told Rogan how troubled he was.
“We have received credible information that the Americans are tearing up half the cities in the world searching for something. I think it is Thayer. We must get to him first.” His eyes bored into Rogan’s. His urgency was palpable. “Find him.”
Rogan nodded. And silently added find her to the directive.
Three minutes later, he strode out of the building into a cold rain.
7
Savannah
Friday morning woke up beautiful. Crisp but sunny. Cerulean sky. Clouds like fluffy white bunny tails. Birds chirping. Tugboats tooting. The ornate white fountain in Forsythe Square burbling merrily as it shot water high into the air. Silver-gray tendrils of the Spanish moss that hung from every live oak in town (and there were hundreds of them) swaying in the breeze. The river busy with everything from kayaks to barges. The streets home to a mix of early-morning runners, holdovers from the previous night’s revels who were straggling toward home, and delivery people of all descriptions, including Nora-on-the-bicycle who dropped off the Savannah Morning News for those in the building who subscribed.
Bianca was not in the mood to appreciate any of it. Fortunately, since what she’d managed to squeeze in was basically an hour-long power nap, she functioned fine on little sleep. She’d always thought that was just a lucky quirk in her metabolism, but now she wondered if it had something to do with the whole super-soldier thing. Which in turn led her to wonder what, exactly, were the “genetic modifications” that had been done to the test-tube embryo that was her. John Kemp, the now-dead CIA assassin who’d kidnapped her and brought her to the attention of Alexander Groton, thus setting this whole race-against-death thing in motion, had spoken of enhanced strength, intelligence and stamina. He’d also said something about athleticism, fighting ability and—was it a gift for languages? Yes, it was. The list of cut-and-paste “improvements” that had been made to her zygote—to her—was, he’d told her, long.
The Moscow Deception--An International Spy Thriller Page 7