“Bonjour.”
He turned to face a tall, lithe woman with elegant cheekbones and startlingly sharp blue eyes. She was one of those rare women whose age Farrell couldn’t have guessed. She might have been forty or sixty, perhaps even older. It was impossible to tell from her nearly unlined face, the elegant figure clad in well-cut trousers and a button-down shirt.
“Hello,” he said. “We were hoping for a taste of your chardonnay. I’ve heard it’s extraordinary.”
Her eyes were unreadable, her expression almost completely blank, neither friendly nor unwelcome. “I was just preparing to close…” Her English was perfect, without a trace of accent, and he wondered if she’d been educated in London.
“I apologize for the lateness of the hour,” he said. “We had a little trouble finding the place.” He looked around for good measure. “But I’m glad we did. It’s impressive.”
She studied him for what felt like a moment too long, then moved behind the counter. “I’m sure we can arrange a quick tasting.”
She put four glasses on the bar, then removed a bottle from behind the bar. “This is the vintage that won us an award at the Concours General,” she said as she poured an inch of golden liquid from one of the bottles into two of the glasses. “Please,” she said, tipping her head at the glasses.
He bent his head to sniff the wine, then rolled it in the glass before taking a sip while Jenna followed suit. The wine was crisp and light, a little bit dry.
“Very nice,” Farrell said. “Peach?”
The woman nodded. “Very good.”
Farrell looked around the room, trying to be casual as he took in the old photographs lining the walls, many of them depicting a young woman working in the fields. The same young woman was seen with her arms around obviously sweaty, dirty men, and in other photos, proudly holding the fruits of their labor in the finished bottles. He recognized that it was the woman serving them wine, even thought she looked vaguely familiar in the old photos, but he couldn’t quite place where he might have seen her before today.
“Is that you?” Farrell asked.
“It is.”
He nodded. “I take it you’re Madame Chevalier then?”
“You would be correct,” she said, pouring from the second bottle.
Her obvious reticence rubbed him the wrong way. She was entitled to her privacy, and probably tired of strangers passing through and pumping her for information on the family business, but his instinct told him there was more to the story.
She set the two new glasses in front of them. “This is our vin jaune, a local favorite.”
Farrell suppressed his distaste for the nuts and bolts of critiquing wine and went though the motions anyway. He was educated at Oxford, could speak five languages, knew more about most things than most people. He still found it to be pretentious bullshit.
“Hmmm,” Jenna said. “It’s a little heavier than the one we had at the restaurant.”
A ghost of a smile touched the woman’s lips. “Our soil tends to produce a more full bodied wine than some.”
Farrell held out his hand. “We should have introduced ourselves. I’m William Holt, and this is my wife, Catherine.”
The woman took their hands. Was it his imagination that she was reluctant? “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“And you are?” He was pushing, maybe too hard, but he wasn’t about to take a couple sips of wine and leave without seeing it through.
“Helene,” she said. “Helene Chevalier.”
“La Maison des Chavalier,” Farrell said.
“That’s right.” She hesitated, then pulled out two plates set with crackers, almonds, and olives from below the counter. “Why don’t you cleanse your palate? I’ll go to the back and get you something else I think you’ll enjoy.”
“Thank you,” Jenna said.
She gave a curt nod, then disappeared beyond the door at the end of the counter.
“Helene,” Jenna said, reaching for an olive. “H. Chevalier.”
“Now I feel like an asshole,” he said.
She laughed softly. “Because you assumed “H” was a man?”
“Yes, because I assumed, and you know what they say about assuming.”
“It makes an ass out of you and me?” She thought about it. “Actually, I never understood the phrase. If you’re the one who assumes, aren’t you the only one who’s an ass?”
“Thank you for spelling that out,” he said, taking a drink from the glass of vin jaune.
“Just keeping you honest,” Jenna said.
“Do you recognize her?” Farrell asked.
“I don't think so. Do you?”
“Not at first," he said. “But the old pictures on the wall…”
“You recognize her when she was young?”
“Maybe.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
They sat in silence for a couple more minutes. “She’s been gone a long time,” Jenna said.
Farrell turned his eyes to the door leading back to the house. Something had begun to scratch at the inside of his brain. It was a word on the tip of his tongue, a realization he couldn’t quite grasp, a fingernail, worrying away at the same piece of skin.
Scratch… scratch… scratch…
He launched himself at Jenna, throwing her off the stool and onto the stone floor just as the first bullet came cleanly through the window over the bar.
Fourteen
Jenna was still trying to figure out what had happened when the lights went out. She was disoriented, flattened under the weight of Farrell’s body, the tasting room cast in ghostly shadows in the flickering light of the fire.
“What’s happening?” Jenna asked.
“Someone’s shooting at us,” Farrell said, drawing his gun. “Stay down.”
He grabbed one of the bistro chairs from the center of the room and lifted it slowly over their heads. It had only cleared the tasting counter by an inch when Jenna heard shattering glass and the thunk of a bullet embedding itself in the back of the chair.
Farrell crouched back down on the floor. “One shooter, maybe a sniper, coming from the vineyard, I think.”
“Was it her?” Jenna asked. “Helene? Did she call someone?”
“I think that’s a safe bet. Or the person shooting at us was already here.”
“What do we do?”
“We get out of here for starters,” he said. “We’re sitting ducks.”
Jenna thought about the layout of the room. “I can only think of two options.”
“The back room or the vineyard,” Farrell said.
“Do you have something else?”
“No.” She heard the frustration he was trying to hide under his calm demeanor. He hated that they were stuck here. Hated that Jenna was stuck here with him and he didn’t have a foolproof way out. “They’re both risky, but I think the back room is riskier. We don’t know what, who, or how many of them might be back there.”
“But the person shooting at us is in the vineyard,” she said.
“You’re not wrong,” he said. “But I’m guessing there’s only one shooter, for now at least. They would have taken the room by now otherwise. And the bullets are coming from behind the bar. If we can get out the door and across the terrace, we can make a run for it through the fields behind the house, maybe before anyone knows we’re gone if we stay low.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
He met her eyes through the half-darkness of the room. “You sure?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
His nod was grim. “We’re going to use the chair to draw his fire again so we can see if he’s in the same position. If he is, we’re going to crawl low and fast to the door. This part is important; don’t run until I give you the word. I don’t know how good of a shot this guy is, but we have to assume he’s good. That means we need to keep our heads down until we have some cover from the vines.”
“Got it.”
He grabbed ano
ther chair, then slowly raised it above the tasting counter. Another bullet zipped through the now shattered window, passing straight through the chair and continuing in the direction of the fireplace.
“Let’s go.” Then he was on the move.
She crawled after him, staying as close as she could as he moved across the hard stone floor toward the door. Beyond it, the terrace and fields were a vacuum of darkness.
They made it to the door, and then they were through it, out onto the terrace. She braced herself for the sting of a bullet, but the night was quiet, and she realized Farrell had been right. The sniper was on the other side of the house, and either couldn’t see that they’d escaped the tasting room or hadn’t yet been able to make his way to their position.
They hit the steps and Farrell got up into a semi-crouched position. She followed his example, and he grabbed her hand. “Stay as low as you can. And run like hell.”
Then they were flying down the terrace steps, across the small patch of grass leading to the vineyard. They hurtled themselves in between the grape vines just as another bullet whizzed so close to Jenna’s head she could hear it.
“Fuck,” Farrell said ahead of her, still pulling her through the row of grapes.
He ducked out of the space between plants, weaving in and out of them instead, obviously hoping for cover as they moved deeper into the field. The smell so pungent it was almost overwhelming — earth and rotting plant matter and a heavy layer of rancid sweetness that assaulted Jenna’s nose.
She lost track of time as Farrell pulled her forward, the vines grabbing her feet as they moved through darkness so total she sometimes couldn’t see him in front of her. And then, somewhere behind them, she heard the sound of vines hitting the ground, like a monstrous animal was on their heels, barreling through the field in pursuit.
Except this animal had a gun.
Farrell picked up the pace, and her lungs burned with the effort of trying to keep up. Not that falling behind was an option. Farrell held tight to her hand, leaving no doubt that he would carry her through the vineyard if necessary. But she wouldn’t allow herself to be a liability to him, and she pushed herself harder, willing her legs to move faster.
She’d begun to see light up ahead when the nearly silent whoof of another bullet hit one of the vines nearby. She was fighting a swell of panic, the feeling that they were like fish in a barrel and it was only a matter of time before one of them was hit. She’d never doubted Farrell’s ability to keep them safe: put him in a room with one gun and five gunmen, and he’d be the one who walked out alive.
But this was an enemy of a different sort. A silent, invisible enemy who somehow had a crystal clear view of them while they couldn’t see him at all. And he was on their heels, so close Jenna could almost feel his breath on her neck.
The light was getting brighter up ahead — the end of the vineyard? the lights of the town in the distance? — when a vibration started in the ground under her feet. She’d never been in an earthquake, but she imagined this is what one felt like, and she wondered idly if they would be swallowed by the ground before the sniper giving chase could kill them.
Then the vibration was something else, a hum moving through her body, accompanied by a dull roar that grew louder with each passing second, accompanied by a wind that seemed to rise up from beyond the hill they were just beginning to crest.
Farrell stopped, looking back toward the vineyard, then turning his face toward the hill like he was contemplating the two options. A moment later, they were out of time. A blinding light rose from behind the hill, the noise deafening, the wind blowing Jenna’s hair around her face as she fought the urge to break free of Farrell’s hands. To run anywhere but here where something was happening she didn’t understand.
And then, just as the helicopter came into view, levitating above the crest of the hill, a voice seemed to echoed from the sky.
“Stop! This is a joint task force of MI6, DGSI, and US Homeland Security. You are under arrest.”
Fifteen
Jenna folded her arms across her chest, wondering if the room was kept cold on purpose or if it only seemed cold compared to the still-mild temperatures in Arbois. It offered no comfort. Small and plain, it was painted pale gray and held only the small table to which she was handcuffed, the chair she sat in, and the empty one across from her. She assumed the opaque glass on one wall was a two-way mirror, but she couldn’t be certain. She’d talked to one person since she’d arrived, and then only to tell the woman that she would speak exclusively to Braden Kane.
The name meant nothing to her, but Farrell had shouted it at her as they were handcuffed and loaded into the chopper in Arbois. Those had been his instructions; don’t talk to anyone but Braden Kane, FBI.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that the helicopter had lifted off, banking toward Paris with she and Farrell and several heavily armed agents aboard, but she had no idea how much time had actually passed. It had all been a blur.
The chopper, only mildly less terrifying than the sniper who had chased her and Farrell through the vineyard.
The short ride to Paris, Farrell telling her over and over that everything would be okay, to only speak to Braden Kane.
The horrifying moment of separation when they’d pulled her away from Farrell’s side. He’d roared with anger then, rushing toward her with so much force that it took four obviously trained men and a taser to finally lay him flat.
Touch her and you die! Do you hear me? Touch her and you’re all dead. Every one of you!
The words had echoed off the walls of the interrogation facility she could only assume belonged to the French DGSI. She didn’t know much about them. Only that the Department of DGSI was the French equivalent of MI6, and then only because she and Farrell had been forced to be vigilant while hiding in Paris, assuming that the other agencies who were after them would have bulletins out with French intelligence as well.
He’d screamed and thrashed until they’d finally resorted to the taser. Her knees had buckled under her then, her heart splitting in two to see Farrell on the ground like a great wounded lion.
The door opened, and she looked up to see the same woman — Agent Firmin was her name — who had interrogated Jenna when she first arrived. She closed the door behind her, then crossed the room holding a styrofoam cup. Sitting across from Jenna, she pushed the cup toward her.
“I thought you could use some coffee.” Her English was good, with only a trace of the accent Jenna usually found so charming in the French. Her copper hair was pulled back into a sleek bun, her figure elegant even in utilitarian trousers and a white oxford.
Jenna went to reach for the cup but was stopped by the cuffs on her hands.
“Oh, yes. I’m sorry.” Officer Firmin rose, pulled a set of keys from her pocket, then freed Jenna from the handcuffs before returning to her seat. She gestured to the cup. “Please.”
Jenna reached for it, took a drink, closed her eyes to savor both the taste and the warmth. When she opened them, she was met by Officer Firmin’s cool-eyed gaze.
“I hope this break from our conversation has been useful for you,” she said.
“I’ll only speak to Agent Braden Kane, FBI.”
“Yes, so you’ve said.” The woman sighed. “I understand you must have some relationship with Agent Kane, but as you’ve seen, we are working together with the CIA — among others — to find out what happened in London and Denmark.”
The woman who was like a mother to me was killed in London. A good man trying to do the right thing was killed in Denmark.
Jenna bit back the words.
“I’ll only speak to Agent Braden Kane of the FBI,” she said again, feeling like a POW reciting her name, rank, and serial number.
Officer Firmin sat back in her chair and studied Jenna with shrewd eyes, obviously disappointed in her charge. Jenna looked at the space beyond the woman’s shoulders, conjured Lily’s face in her mind’s eye, the feel of her daughter’s small hand, t
he way she smelled after her bath.
It was a bad idea, and she felt tears sting her eyes. She was so far from Lily. What would happen to her if both Farrell and Jenna were imprisoned? Would she ever forgive them for leaving her?
“This is very serious,” Officer Firmin said. “A woman is dead in London. A well known scientist has met the same fate in Denmark. You have the distinction of being known to both victims, of seeing them shortly before their deaths. I don’t want to believe you bear responsibility, but unless you speak to me, give me some other explanation, we can have no other theories.”
“I’ll only speak to Agent Braden Kane of the FBI.”
Lily would be in bed now, fast asleep in Tuscany. Would the doors to the terrace be open? Was it still warm enough to allow for a soft breeze? Should she dream of Jenna? Wake to the smell of Mrs. Pendleton’s pancakes and warm maple syrup? Jenna hoped so.
“Perhaps you’d like to speak to Mr. Black.”
The name got her attention, and Jenna’s gaze snapped back to Officer Firmin’s face.
The shadow of a smile touched her lips. “We can arrange for a meeting between you if you answer a few questions.”
Jenna licked her lips. “Is he… is he all right?”
“Why don’t you answer my questions and find out for yourself?” Officer Firmin asked.
Jenna took another drink of coffee, fighting against the temptation plucking at her mind. If only she could see Farrell for a minute. Just a minute. Just to know he was okay. To know they hadn’t hurt him. Then she would be able to stay quiet until they brought Braden Kane.
“You have a daughter. Lily, yes?” Officer Firmin asked, her voice sympathetic. She continued without waiting for an answer. “It must have been very difficult to stay away from her all this time. You must love her very much.”
You have no idea. No idea.
“She must miss you as well. If we can get to the bottom of this quickly, you could be on your way home to her in a matter of hours,” she said. “Maybe even in time for breakfast. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Eternal (London Mob Book 3) Page 8