by Alex Archer
“A toy?”
“That’s what it says here.”
“Are there any pictures?”
“None.”
Garin snarled and took another sip of his drink. He kept watching the woman out in the lobby. What was Melina Andrianou doing here? He wondered that, but he was certain he knew the answer. Just not how she’d been able to find him. Doing so meant she had considerable resources.
“I’m still digging into the court case because that appears to be our best leverage point. I’ll let you know what I find out. I have to say that I’m quite pleased with what I’ve been able to dig up so far.”
“Of course. As am I. Hold on just a moment.” Garin lifted his phone, opened the camera app and captured images of two of the men he believed to be with Andrianou.
The third man had disappeared.
Garin texted the images of the men to Amalia. “See if you can dig up anything on these two men.”
“Sure. Images are coming through now. Who are they?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you.”
“Testy, testy, aren’t we?”
“Ms. Andrianou is standing in my hotel lobby.”
“You’re kidding!”
Garin captured another image, this one of the woman in profile, and sent it along, as well. “Would I joke about something like that?”
“No, of course not. How did she get there?”
“I’d like you to find out. We left a trail somewhere.”
“I didn’t. All your financials are clear under the cover identity you’re using at the hotel. The woman didn’t track that.”
“Perhaps I was not as circumspect in my arrival here as I’d hoped.” Garin squashed his rising irritation. After all, he’d killed Claudia Golino and believed he’d blown up her cohorts, as well.
But if Andrianou were as practiced as she appeared to be, she might have had a second team waiting in the wings. Garin had done that before himself.
“See if you can find out anything about these men that connects to Andrianou and get back to me as soon as you can.”
“I will.”
Garin broke the connection and watched the lobby. Things were definitely taking an interesting turn. He’d left the clockwork piece in the safe in his suite. He hadn’t been worried about losing the piece, but now it bothered him that he didn’t have it to hand.
After all, the only thing that tied Andrianou to him was the clockwork butterfly. She hadn’t happened along so soon after losing her employee by some happy coincidence.
Garin took another drink and considered his next move, wondering if he wanted the woman alive or dead.
10
When the elevator arrived at the lobby level, Roux bade Devore goodbye and walked away with the suitcase of money in his left hand. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and hit one of the speed dial numbers.
“Good afternoon, sir.” The voice was female and had an Australian accent that Roux thought was positively delightful.
“Good afternoon, Honeysuckle. Bring the car around front, would you?”
“I’ll be right there.”
By the time Roux reached the hotel entrance and stood out in the cool Parisian spring breeze, Honeysuckle pulled the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud to a smooth stop in front. One of the nearby valets hurried forward and opened the car door for Roux. Sliding inside, Roux handed the valet a hundred-franc note and sat back as the man closed the door.
Honeysuckle Torrey was in her mid-twenties, a stunning strawberry blonde whose hair barely brushed the liveried shoulders of the chauffeur’s uniform she wore, along with cap and gloves. She was Australian by birth, a child of the world by luck and adventuress by choice.
Roux had crossed paths with her a few months ago in Taiwan while playing in a Texas Hold ’Em tournament. She’d been working as a bodyguard for a man who had turned out to be contemptible in many ways. The man had also made the mistake of thinking he could kill Roux. Roux had disabused the man of that notion, and Honeysuckle had lent a hand. After viewing the young woman’s quick thinking and prowess, as well as her calm in the face of danger, Roux had immediately offered her a job as his driver and sometime bodyguard.
“Everything went well?” Honeysuckle accelerated into traffic effortlessly.
“Yes, I was pleased.” Roux set the suitcase aside. “Did you get some sleep as I suggested?”
“I did. The room was quite comfortable.”
“Good. Once I’d settled in with those people, I knew it was going to take a while to set everything up.”
Honeysuckle glanced into the rearview mirror, meeting Roux’s gaze. “You’re agitated.”
Irritated that he’d been caught out, realizing that he’d been drumming his fingers on the door, Roux made a fist.
He wouldn’t be able to keep this young woman in his employ for long. She was too restless and far too observant. Only Henshaw, Roux’s majordomo at his manor house, knew much about his employer’s personal life. Roux had worked hard to prevent more from getting close.
“Something unexpected has come up,” he said.
Honeysuckle arched a perfect eyebrow. “Do you have a destination in mind? Let’s start with that.”
“Home. There are some things I must look at.” Roux caught himself drumming his fingers again and cursed beneath his breath. He took out his cell phone and called Garin back.
“Well,” his former apprentice said upon answering, “it took you longer to call back than I thought it would.”
Garin’s shortness was almost too much to take given the circumstances. On some cold and lonely mornings, Roux often thought of the boy he had raised, and of the way that boy’s father had come close to killing him before he apprenticed him to Roux. On those days, Roux missed the way it used to be between them.
The man Garin had grown into was difficult, but Roux knew he’d come by that honestly. Roux had raised him the only way he’d known how, and he tended to be a demanding man himself.
Although he’d reflected over their strained relationship for hundreds of years, this wasn’t the time. “Is the clockwork piece real?”
“I don’t know them as well as you do. Perhaps you would like to examine it. I certainly didn’t have it made to get a rise out of you.”
Roux clamped down on his automatic response and chose to be more amenable. “I would like to take a look. Where are you now?”
“Florence.”
“I could meet you there.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Garin’s tone caught Roux’s attention at once. “What’s wrong?”
“Getting the clockwork wasn’t an easy thing. The event made the news.”
“How many times have I told you that you can’t simply walk in and take something? You need subterfuge.” Roux leaned back in his seat and massaged his temples. He wanted to sleep, and he wanted nothing to do with a clockwork creation.
He was afraid of them.
“I had everything neatly arranged. Just a quiet buy. Then a third party interrupted. In fact, she tried to kill me.”
“She?”
“Yes. Quite a beautiful woman.”
Roux felt like a vise had centered on his chest and was tightening. “Was she redheaded?”
“No.”
Roux relaxed a little. “Good.”
“Do you mean redheaded like Melina Andrianou?”
His fear came rushing back, clouded in gunsmoke and the stench of blood. Roux had to force himself to speak. “How do you know that name?”
“Apparently she’s trying to find me.”
“You mustn’t let her.”
“She’s standing in the lobby of the hotel where I’m staying.”
“Then you h
ave to get out of there. Now, Garin. What that woman will do to you is worse than death.”
Garin chuckled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were afraid of her,” he said, clearly intrigued.
“I am. She will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Get out of there as quickly and quietly as you can. Whatever identity you’re using, whatever you’ve got that’s associated with that identity, lose it. You won’t be able to call me at this number again. I’ll get another one to you through the drop.”
“You’re serious about her, aren’t you?”
“Yes. We need to figure out where we’re going to meet to deal with the clockwork. Where was it found?”
There was silence.
“Garin?”
When Garin spoke again, he sounded quieter and more intense. “I’m going to have to call you back.”
Then the phone clicked dead in Roux’s ear.
Cursing, Roux emailed the images Garin had sent him to an address he could access without giving himself away. Henshaw saw to such things. He didn’t want this conversation to come back to haunt him.
If it wasn’t already too late.
Roux took the cell phone apart, separated the battery and rolled down his window. He dumped it all out onto the street.
Honeysuckle caught his gaze in the rearview mirror. “Bad news?”
“Yes.” Roux sat up and reached for his seat belt, pulling it on. “You’ll want to be careful. I’m afraid things might get a little rough.”
Honeysuckle nodded and sped up slightly, driving more aggressively through the traffic.
“May I borrow your cell phone?”
Honeysuckle handed the cell over the seat without hesitation. “Am I going to get it back, or is it going out the window, too?”
“I’ll buy you another one, and I apologize for whatever inconvenience losing this one might cause you.”
“No inconvenience. When I’m on the job, I never carry a personal phone.”
For a moment, Roux gazed at the phone, only then remembering that Annja Creed’s phone number had been programed into the other unit. He closed his eyes, summoned up the phone number out of centuries of memories and punched it in.
The phone rang three times, then went to voice mail. Cursing, Roux had to think even longer to remember his own house number. He punched it and was rewarded with an almost instantaneous answer.
“Hello. May I help you?” Henshaw’s English accent rendered his French barely acceptable. He was ex-military and as majordomo he ran Roux’s Paris home with precision.
“Henshaw, it’s me.”
“Ah, very good, sir.” Henshaw didn’t ask questions. Roux appreciated that about the man.
“I’m on my way home now, but I’m afraid I might be bringing some trouble with me.”
“Understood, sir. I will, of course, take all the necessary precautions.” That meant the house outside the city would quickly become a bunker. “Do you have an ETA?”
Roux looked at Honeysuckle. “How long?”
“With this traffic, forty, forty-five minutes.”
“I heard, sir. Ample time to prepare.”
“I need one thing further, Henshaw.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Contact Annja Creed. Tell her that Garin and I need her. Details will be forthcoming.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I have also uploaded a couple of images under the Basse identity. See that Annja gets those, as well.”
“Shall I give her any information?”
“I have none at this point.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Thank you, Henshaw.” Roux broke the connection, then he broke the phone and shoved it out the window. He gazed behind them, looking for tails, which meant the sanitation truck that came roaring out of the cross street at the next intersection caught him unprepared.
The impact sent a clangor of thunder through the Rolls-Royce. The heavy bulletproof glass fractured, filling the windows with spiderwebbing, but it didn’t give way. Roux’s head slammed into the window, then everything went hazy as the car turned turtle and ended up on its roof.
Dazed, his body not responding to his commands, Roux flailed for the walking stick as armed men wearing masks debarked from the sanitation truck.
11
“Keep your hands on the table or I will kill you.”
Unhappy with himself at being caught so easily, Garin turned to face the man in the booth behind him. It was the third man on the search team, the one Garin had lost track of, and the man currently held a pistol pressed to the base of Garin’s skull. The way he sat blocked the view of the gun from the server and the scattered patrons in the bar. Garin couldn’t see the pistol, but he assumed it was of sufficient caliber to leave an unpleasant hole through his neck and an even more unpleasant mess in the hotel.
Garin kept his hands on the table. “As you wish, but are you sure Andrianou would want you to kill me?”
The man grinned at that. He was small and compact, very fit, but instantly forgettable. He had no visible tattoos, jewelry or scars.
“I was told you are a dangerous man. Therefore, whatever order I have been given will be superseded by my own desire to continue living.” The man’s eyes were a flat brown. “You, my job, my employer—nothing means more to me than that.”
“I’m glad you brought up employment. Perhaps we could discuss career opportunities.”
The man shook his head slightly. “Not for sale. If I was, you wouldn’t be interested in me any longer than it took to put a bullet through my head if I could be bought off.”
Garin gave a small nod. “True.”
“Get up slowly and I won’t shoot you.”
Garin did and the man stood with him. He roped his arm around Garin so that it looked like they were two friends. The man was tall enough that having his arm over Garin’s shoulders wasn’t too awkward.
“Now stay very still.” With his free hand, the man searched Garin’s clothing, making it look like he was adjusting his jacket, and removed the pistol from the holster at the small of his back. It disappeared into his jacket pocket. “Just the one weapon?”
“You trust me?”
“If I spot another weapon you’re holding out on me, I’m going to shoot you where you’re standing. I hate surprises.”
Garin nodded. “So do I.”
The man grinned.
Garin met the man’s gaze. “Do I get to meet your boss?”
“She’s looking forward to it, Mr. Braden.”
The use of his name bothered Garin immensely. The false identities he used were deep and hard to break. The one he’d used to collect the clockwork had a longer lifespan than most, had even been something of a sacrifice to lose, but there was nothing substantial connected to it. Nothing that would tie that name to Garin Braden.
Melina Andrianou knew more than he’d expected anyone to. Roux’s words reverberated through his skull. What that woman will do to you is worse than death. In all their long relationship, Garin had been given opportunities to meet several sadistic and cruel people. Roux generally didn’t deal with the average selfless person in his hunt for Joan’s shattered sword—or the other items he gathered.
The man gave Garin a small push toward the main lobby. Garin went that way, but remained loose and ready, knowing that he was about to have a small window in which to reverse the situation.
Even though she was tired, the server was alert enough to keep an eye on her tables. “Hey!” Her voice rang out behind Garin. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just walk out of here without paying the bill!”
Garin made it a point to not have anything he did in a hotel amended to his bill. Doing so made it too easy to check his movements. He’d know
n the young server wouldn’t let him walk away without paying.
His captor turned toward the server. As the man shifted, the pistol muzzle sliding along Garin’s neck, Garin stepped back and spun to his right, keeping contact with the weapon, blocking the man from employing it, then tried to spin out of harm’s way.
Still up against Garin’s neck, the pistol barked. True to his word, the man had shown no compunction about shooting. The heated gas from the spent cartridge singed Garin’s skin and the loud detonation deafened him. He kept turning, swinging around the man’s hand like it was a pivot point, till he was facing his would-be captor. Garin swept his left hand up and jabbed the man in the right eye with his forefinger.
Squalling in pain, clapping his hand to his eye so that his forearm partially blocked his vision, blood leaking down his cheek, the man stumbled back and fought to bring his pistol to bear. Garin grabbed hold of his hand gripping the pistol and twisted violently as another round of bullets cored into the ceiling. He chopped the man in the throat, creating an instant choking spasm that took away his breath. The man’s wrist shattered in Garin’s grip and the pistol slid free.
Deftly, as he swept his gaze around the hotel and saw guests and staff running for cover, Garin reached into the man’s jacket pocket and recovered his pistol. Then he slammed his borrowed weapon into the man’s forehead. The man fell.
Garin followed him down and took a moment to kneel and search him, turning up two more magazines for his captured weapon. He thrust those into his pockets and caught a flurry of movement at the bar’s open doorway leading to the lobby. Another man peered over the sights of a pistol, firing even as Garin threw himself to the side over the guy he’d knocked out.
As he rolled, Garin thrust the pistol out and opened fire. Two of the bullets struck the woodwork beside the shooter’s cheek, driving splinters into his flesh. The third and fourth bullets crunched through his face and snapped his head back as his body went slack.
Garin retreated behind the bar. A moment later, a hail of bullets shattered several of the bottles on the counter at the back. The large mirror went to pieces and came down in a deadly, glimmering rain.