by Judith Leon
Inside, she checked her shawl, ascended a broad staircase to the second floor, and worked her way through elegantly attired guests toward a buffet table without spotting Jake. He was probably in the gaming room in the back where high-stakes, illegal baccarat and roulette were played. Jake’s payoff from her for his efforts was always two things: five percent of her finder’s fee and that, every time she came to him soliciting information, she spend at least two hours in the back room schmoozing with his gamblers and looking her most alluring.
Before she could select any of the gorgeous morsels on the buffet, a man’s hand clapped her bare back and swept her from the table. Beppo, a glorified fence for stolen goods, whisked her onto a balcony into the shock of cold air and thrust her backward in a motion so smooth and sudden, she had no immediate defense. Smelling of stale tobacco, he leaned on top of her like a tango dancer bending over his partner, and the rail pressed painfully into her spine and kidneys.
Potted palms and heavy drapes prevented onlookers from inside the party witnessing what they’d assume were eager lovers if they did catch a glimpse. With one hand he clamped her throat, fingers digging in. She could barely breathe.
“No one will hear you scream over Iacapo’s pretentious chamber music,” he said.
She struggled, but with his other hand, he forced one of her arms behind her.
“Because of you,” he snarled, “I had Interpol breathing down my back for weeks, carabinieri and private detectives, too.” He pushed her head farther back as she thrashed. “Double-crossers get what they deserve.”
Her hair clip loosened and fell into the canyon below—where she just might fall if she didn’t do something. Her throat and back in agony, she still clutched her purse in her free hand. She tried to push him back. Failed. She screamed, though weakly, to distract him. With her thumb, she flicked the clasp open, hooked fingers around the small container, let the bag drop, flipped the release and sprayed him full in the face with superstrength mace/pepper foam.
He screamed Italian swearwords, or tried to, and dropped to his knees.
“I don’t think anyone can hear you over Iacapo’s pretentious chamber music,” she said as she picked up her purse. “And if guys leaned on you, Beppo, it wasn’t because of me. Pieces looted from the BaghdadMuseum are still too hot.” Through Beppo and extremely discreetly, Lindsey had helped a benefactor of the museum return a Persian golden lion to the curators.
Shivering, she left him writhing on the balcony, shut the double doors, locked them and closed the heavy damask ivory drapes.
Jake, delighted to see her, joined her and squired her into the gaming room. She complied, inwardly seething with impatience. This better pay off. Every minute she played hostess, Teal Arnett might be gasping a last breath.
“I like your hair flying loose that way,” Jake said. He was in his early fifties, pudgy and bearded, black hair shot through with gray. She stepped back a little. He said, “Did you know that musk from the male musk deer is worth three times more per ounce than gold on the black market? One of my many friends here—”
“Jake, I hate to interrupt but I have two urgent situations.” She quickly explained, as if she were dealing with separate cases, a kidnapping of an American girl and any news of trafficking in human genetics, in any form.
“I have nothing for you.” He frowned. “Do you hear banging?”
“That will be Beppo. We had…a little disagreement. I locked him onto the downstairs balcony.”
Jake looked genuinely distressed. “Il figlio di putana! I’ll have the bastard thrown out, Lindsey.”
She put in her two hours as hostess, and when he finally returned to her as she was preparing to leave, he looked sad. “If I hear anything—”
“Time is critical, Jake. Wake me up if necessary.”
Her secure cell phone rang as she opened the door to her apartment just before 1:00 a.m. Lindsey fetched it from her purse.
“Lindsey? It’s Allison.”
“Any news?” Lindsey felt suddenly breathless.
“I think so. Katie Rush’s friend, Stefan, the psychic. He’s receiving powerful mental impressions that he’s sure come from Teal.”
“Oh, thank God. She’s still alive and okay, then?”
“The communication is more in images, not words. We can’t be sure of much.”
Lindsey grabbed a pen and paper. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“He says he has an image of a city that looks old and European with drifts of snow on red-tile roofs, domes poking out of the snow, and spires. Lots of tall spires.”
Lindsey scribbled—old, Europe, snow, spires. “That sounds like a hundred European cities this time of year.”
“No kidding. Sam cross-referenced satellite visuals of snow across Europe with architecture and cities of over a hundred thousand and came up with over 250 cities.”
Lindsey sighed. “Why didn’t Stefan send messages sooner?”
Allison sighed, as well. “I feel sorry for this young man. He admitted to, at one point, seeing only blackness around Teal. He secretly feared she’d died. Now he thinks she may have been drugged. Maybe they drug her off and on.”
“I have a few more leads, but all I’ve turned up is that the Kestonians are interested in creating an army of genetically enhanced soldiers.”
“Ye gods…Well, then the Kestonians would certainly be interested in any Lab 33 info that might be for sale.”
Lindsey ended the call. “Lots of tall spires.” God, she was tired. She couldn’t think. But that’s why we have computer searches.
She brought up the Web browser on her computer and entered Europe city spires and immediately found what she was struggling to remember. The first entry of hundreds of thousands of hits. “Golden city of spires.” “City of a hundred spires.” Prague.
Nothing was that easy. She knew better than to jump to the conclusion that she’d found the answer, but it was nice to have a name at the top of the list. Fatigue took possession of her body. She stared blankly, as if her mind was like the static of “snow” on a TV screen. She had to eat something.
She stumbled into her bedroom instead and took her shoes and gown off. Naked, she threw the covers back and focused on setting her alarm. Too tired to even wiggle into a night-shirt, she crashed onto her pillow.
To her amazement, she thought of Marko, picturing his arms around her, imagining the warmth of lying together.
No…
No.
Chapter 9
S he woke after six hours, feeling desperate. In the shower, Lindsey remembered she’d had a disturbing nightmare of parachuting and landing in a cold, black sea. Like Teal must have done. The sea…
Of course!
Someone she’d only worked with indirectly was in her files. She threw on sweats, made peanut butter and jelly on toast and opened her file on a man who specialized in sea traffic in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic—including modern-day piracy and human smuggling. He lived in Pisa but choppered daily to the port of Livorno for his business. Anything coming in through a port, especially in cargo containers, came to his attention sooner or later. He paid hundreds of miscellaneous crew members, private and military. He knew the strictest ports in Europe, as well as the leakiest. She e-mailed him asking for any knowledge of a rescue at sea in the Atlantic south of Ireland, along with where the ship may have docked and any subsequent destination, and left her cell phone number, urgently requesting a call.
Maybe finding Teal would require putting bits and pieces together instead of making one right connection. Her next contact, Cesare Fumagalli, required another shift in persona. He’d originally met her at one of his wild parties where she’d cornered a drugged-out thief from a tapestry buyback gone south. She’d caught the thief stealing one of Cesare’s heirloom pinkie rings worth several thousand dollars—which proved the power of drugs, since no one sober would consider pulling such a stunt. Word was, the creep was never seen again. Ever. LakeComo was the deepest lake in Ital
y.
Cesare was the son of a bona fide Mafia don—whom he had, he bragged, badly disappointed. He wanted people to think he was legit but didn’t even bother with a front to account for his lavish spending and fabulous villa on LakeComo. Still, Cesare had plenty of money and nobody messed with him. And he had amazing black-market contacts, buying and selling South African Krugerrands and diamonds, pharmaceuticals, legal and otherwise, religious icons, weapons, “black gold,” which was not oil but caviar, regular gold and anything else of value.
He thought of Lindsey as hot and wild. It was cold up there now in the lake district, and she could wear her Cossack coat and boots, but after that, she’d look nothing like she had in Geneva. She pulled on purple tights. Then the spandex micromini. Sheer teal knit top—no bra. Gray silk shirt unbuttoned. Shabby-chic iridescent black wool scarf. Hair gelled, twisted up and clipped, teased and sprayed. Makeup. Layers of it around the eyes.
Ready.
With desperation snapping at her heels, she caught a train to Milan and another to Como, where she rented an Alfa Romeo and drove to the grand hotel in Bellagio for lunch at one, a three-hour trip, one-way.
Cesare was handsome and amusing, midthirties, very Latin with dark eyes and lashes any woman might covet. Their table overlooked the lake, everything in view lightly dusted with snow. Her Eurotrash persona attracted stares from the hotel’s sedate clientele. Cesare wouldn’t mind. He loved flaunting his outrageous lifestyle.
“You know,” he said after he’d ordered, “I always thought my ancestors were cooks who smoked chickens.”
“Oh? Let’s see, fuma is smoke and galli, yeah, chicken. So what were they really?”
“I just learned that they smoked henhouses to keep chickens from squawking when they were being stolen. So, chicken thieves!”
They both laughed.
“Not cooks but crooks,” she joked.
He stopped laughing.
My God, Lindsey, watch it. This Mafioso can make people who tell jokes at his expense disappear.
They chitchatted. He seemed interested in what she knew about musk from male musk deer and about Dacian coins. While eating eggplant parmesan, she spoke to him of the kidnapping. Almost as an afterthought she also explained she had another client interested in anything about genetic tampering with humans. Of all the things Cesare would be least likely to know about it was genetic engineering.
He held his hand out, indicating she should put her hand in his. She did. A passing busboy gawked and dropped a dish off his tray. Ignoring the boy completely, Cesare pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed slowly, never taking his eyes off hers.
Still holding her hand, he said, “You found my ring, and I retrieved your tapestry. Mutual reciprocity is a wonderful thing.” His gaze traveled to her breasts and then back to her eyes. “If I find information on this matter for you, the debt will again pass to you.” He kissed her hand again. “And I’m sure we’ll think of something mutually gratifying.”
She drew a deep breath, and then laughed, as though thinking his comment was intended to be one of his fake Mafia jokes. “Right. I’d owe you one.”
He smiled slightly, staring at her as if he knew something she didn’t. Then from the inside pocket of his soft black leather jacket he pulled out something she never expected a playboy like Cesare to even know about, let alone own—a BlackBerry. “Let’s check out the latest on the black-market eBay.”
He clicked several times, frowned, began another series of clicks and smiled. “What do you think of this? ‘Private auction. Anyone interested in genetic engineering of humans for medical or other uses would be interested in this sale item. Seven-figure bids only. Prospective buyers will be screened. Personal contact required.’” Another smile, one of victory. “It is to be in two days in Prague and there is a Prague contact number.”
Oh, my God! Prague!
“This source is dated. It’s been circulating for nearly four weeks. But it’s big-time black market stuff.”
Not surprising. Whoever had planned the kidnapping would have wanted to line up potential buyers. She stood, giving him a warm smile but feeling more than a bit displeased. Lots of competition would already have had this information for four weeks.
“You owe me, Lindsey.”
Using her cell phone on the return train trips, Lindsey made flight reservations to Prague for the next morning. A call came in from her shipping contact in Lovorno, saying he’d traced an arrival in a charter ship under circumstances like those she’d described into the French port of St. Nazaire on the Bay of Biscay near Nantes, but he had no further information. But it didn’t matter. No more contacts needed. Cesare had come through.
She punched another number and was connected to her dad’s voice mail. “K-bar, it’s me. Sorry I missed you. I’m leaving for Prague on a ten o’clock flight out of Rome in the morning. Czech Airlines. It’s another…this art deal is more complex than I’d thought. Back in two or three days. Kisses. Bye.”
Finally a call to Christine at the Academy.
“You did it! Excellent work, Lindsey,” she said after listening to Lindsey’s news. “Stefan has been bombarded again with images and feelings from Teal. She’s in a place Stefan describes as a dungeon, and she’s anxious, freaked out but not terrified. They must still be taking relatively good care of her. He senses her powerful loathing for a slender man with slicked-down hair. Mediterranean-looking.”
“I’ll need cover.” She gave Christine her flight number and departure time.
“I’ll put people on it immediately. You’ll have a packet waiting at the Florence airport tomorrow morning. What we can’t have ready for you by then will be waiting at the CIA safe house in Prague. I’m virtually certain I have the pull needed to arrange for the safe house to be your base. If not, I’ll arrange something else.”
“We’re going to get Teal back,” Lindsey said.
“Be careful, Lindsey. We don’t want to lose you, too. The sense here is that something far more sinister than a kidnapping seems to be going on, we just don’t know what.”
Chapter 10
“I don’t understand,” Marko said to K-bar. K-bar sat behind that massive, virtually bare walnut desk playing with a silver letter opener that always reminded Marko of a dagger. “What is it you want me to do?”
“I think Lindsey may be into something more dangerous than she fully understands. I want you to follow her. She’s not to know it, but I want you to keep on her tail. And should it become necessary, protect her.”
Marko could not suppress a smile. The memory of Lindsey’s body trembling against his rose in his mind, and he imagined the touch and taste of her lips and mouth. He also remembered that she’d tossed him out after setting him on fire. The woman was danger personified. “Mr. Novak, with all due respect, I’ve seen Lindsey in action. That is one woman who can take care of herself.”
K-bar laughed. He tossed the letter opener onto the desk. “Actually, you don’t know the half of it. My daughter had training at a very special high school. A kind of military, survival, and spy academy for women. I sent her there so that she’d be able to handle herself.”
“Then—”
K-bar held up a restraining hand. “You know about her art retrieval enterprises. She’s told me she is taking off for Prague on another one, but I don’t believe her. I can’t explain why this one feels different. Maybe because she’s never gone as far afield before. But there’s also the fact that I have, for some time, suspected that she’s involved with a government agency. Something she hasn’t told me about. Officially can’t.”
“You think she’s been spying?”
“Maybe. Many AthenaAcademy graduates go into government service. Often quite openly. Analysts for the NSA or CIA or FBI, for example. But I know some of them must be recruited for secret service. I’m worried that this is true for Lindsey.”
“Still, you’ve said she’s capable and I’ve seen it myself.”
“Marko, this isn’t
a request. You work for me. This is your assignment. You follow her. To Prague or to hell if necessary. I want to know what she is doing. And most of all, I want to know someone I trust has her back. What I understand—and I doubt that Lindsey does—is that these agencies see their people as soldiers, unfortunately but necessarily disposable. My daughter is not disposable.”
They lapsed into silence, K-bar’s gaze boring right into Marko’s skull. Sweat trickled at his neck. Following Lindsey Novak would be about the last thing in the world he’d want to do. If anything happened to her, Marko would be skewered and barbecued over the flame of K-bar’s anger. And then there was the fact that being around Lindsey sent Marko’s hormones into overdrive.
K-bar broke the silence. “Aren’t you going to ask me when and where?”
Early the next morning, Wednesday, as he settled into his coach-class seat on the commuter plane that would take him and Lindsey into Rome, Marko reminded himself again of his obligation to K-bar. The man had rescued him from the pit of the French Foreign Legion and given him the best job he’d ever had or ever dreamed of. Action. Adventure. Women. Interesting places. He loved working for NSI. He would do his damnedest to protect K-bar’s daughter.
And he wouldn’t actually have to be with Lindsey, just shadow her. Surely he could manage that. Couldn’t he?
From Rome they would fly direct on Czech Airlines into Prague. K-bar had used his resources to find her schedule and had tickets waiting in Florence. Marko wore sunglasses, a heavy black winter overcoat and a black, shearling lamb Russian Ambassador’s winter hat; Prague was going to be colder than Mont Blanc in a blizzard. About the only part of him not covered were his cheeks. Marko had boarded the plane after she had, and she never even looked up when he walked past.