More Than a Mission

by Caridad Piñeiro

  She turned, glanced over her shoulder as if sensing that she was being watched. Pausing, she examined the room, then moved to the one locker closest to the safe. Again with a few quick turns she opened the combination lock.

  He wondered what she was up to and was surprised when she pushed aside some clothes hanging in the locker, stepped inside, and then closed the door behind her, disappearing from sight.

  Shit. Standing, he rushed to Lucia’s room and pounded on the door. “Lucia! The Sparrow’s flown the nest!”

  As Lucia opened her door, she grumbled, “This better be good, Aidan.”

  He motioned to the monitors. “The Sparrow is armed and dressed to kill. She headed out of the cellar through some kind of hidden passage in one of the lockers.”

  “Then you better arm yourself, as well,” she said, but he bent and picked up the hem of his jeans leg to reveal the mini six-shot Glock 36 tucked into an ankle holster.

  Lucia let out a disbelieving chuckle. “If it’s the Sparrow, you’ll need more than that pea shooter.” She reached into the pocket of her robe, extracted her larger Glock 34 and held it out to him.

  Aidan snagged the weapon from her grasp and, as he headed for the door, called out, “Keep an eye on the cellar. Call me if there’s any activity.”

  “Where do you think you’re headed?”

  “To the beach. It’s the most likely place for the tunnel to end. I should be able to see where she’s going from there.”

  He’d raced off the main street and down to the shore, running along what little was left of the beach thanks to the high tide. By the time he got behind the cottage, his shoes and the bottoms of his pants were soaked all the way up to the knee.

  The light in her bathroom still spilled into the night.

  He pulled out Lucia’s Glock, crept up the rocky path from the beach and scoped out the dunes and gardens adjacent to the cottage. No activity besides the movement of the marsh grasses in the dunes from a slight ocean breeze. Crouching down, he kept to the edge of the garden that Elizabeth had crafted behind the restaurant.

  Still no sign of anyone.

  Moving to the side yard, he examined that area, and then paused, glancing down at the luminous face of his watch. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since the Sparrow had slipped into the locker. He recollected her pace as she’d run the other day. If she had escaped into an open area and decided to run, she could be a good distance away already.

  Cursing beneath his breath that he might have lost her, he pressed toward the opposite side of the yard, but could see nothing in the backyards of the neighboring shops and homes. A dog’s bark caught his attention.

  He squinted through the night in the direction of the noise.

  That was when he thought he saw something moving down at the water’s edge, close to the old stone building that was Leonia’s fish market. Concentrating, he focused on where he had seen the motion.

  Was that something moving in the shadows behind the fish market?

  “Come in, Blender Boy. The Sparrow’s in her nest,” Lucia advised over his earpiece.

  He ignored Lucia and peered down to the market.

  Definitely something, he thought. Maybe even two people behind the building. “Red Rover, confirm, Red Rover. I think I’ve got something here.”

  “Sparrow just came out of the bathroom. What do you have?”

  Aidan squinted and cursed that he had forgotten to bring his binoculars. But Lucia had a pair up in the suite. “Red Rover. Focus on the back of the fish market. At about two o’clock.”

  Some noise came over the wire and in his mind, Aidan counted the seconds of delay as Lucia grabbed the binoculars, headed to the window and monitored the area he had pointed out. Moving nearer, he tried to confirm what he’d seen earlier, but the closer he got, it seemed to him that he might have imagined it. Or maybe it was two fisherman making an early delivery.

  “Nothing in sight. Are you sure you saw her there?”

  He wasn’t certain and he should have been. He had been one of the army’s best and here he was, being led around in circles by a slip of a woman. “Not sure, Red Rover. Returning to base,” he advised, then slipped the gun back into his pocket and walked through Elizabeth’s gardens to the road.

  Once there, he raced back to the hotel and to the suite where Lucia was seated in front of the monitors. In one picture, Elizabeth slept soundly in her bed.

  He walked up behind his colleague. “I don’t get it. I saw someone preparing for a job. I saw her leave the cellar.”

  Lucia looked over her shoulder at him. “I’m not saying you didn’t. But if she did all that, she wasn’t gone for long. Or maybe it was someone else.”

  “Maybe,” was all he could admit. Plopping down into the chair beside her, he returned her weapon and moved his feet, which squished noisily.

  Lucia finally examined him and shook her head. “Maybe it’s time for you to get clean and get some rest. You need to be back on the job—”

  “At ten. The restaurant opens for brunch at eleven.”

  “I’ll take over your watch. Plus, I’ll fill Walker in later this morning.” She tucked her gun back into the pocket of her robe.

  Right, fill in Walker, he thought. But there was one thing he needed to tell her before he went to sleep. “The weapon she had—”

  “A Sigma SW9F? That’s what ballistics said about her two pistol kills,” Lucia interrupted.

  Aidan met her gaze squarely and shook his head. “She had an HK Mark 23.”

  “Mitch’s gun.” She reached out, laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Aidan.”

  “I’m not. Whoever was in that cellar did it. Chances are that it was the Sparrow. I plan on proving that she killed the prince, as well. When you call Walker, make sure and find out if he has any new info.”

  “Will do,” she acknowledged and turned her attention back to the monitor, not that there was much going on. Just Elizabeth still in her bed. Peacefully at rest.

  Aidan wondered how she could sleep so soundly. Didn’t all her kills haunt her the way Mitch’s murder haunted him?

  But then again, sociopaths didn’t have the same kinds of reactions that normal people did, he thought. Walker would be the first to tell him that. Yet her behavior earlier that night and her kiss…

  She had been just a normal woman, enjoying a night out with friends. Friends who might be able to give him more information on the real Elizabeth. Although he had to be at the restaurant by ten, that still left him an hour or so in the morning to visit both Kate and Samantha’s stores and talk to the women.

  Maybe they would give him some insight on what made the Sparrow tick, because, so far, she had him totally confused.

  Chapter 8

  Elizabeth was awake long before the alarm went off, chirping stridently to remind her she couldn’t linger in bed.

  Saturdays and Sundays were always the busiest days of the week thanks to the brunch the restaurant served, but they were also the most profitable. Well worth the extra effort.

  She was in the kitchen with time to spare before Natalie and her other assistants appeared. She fixed herself a large mug of coffee, and took a moment for a stroll through the back garden, pausing to pick a dead flower here and there.

  In about four hours, her patrons would begin to arrive, but for now, she grabbed a seat on the low edge of the stone wall between her cottage and the beach. As she sipped her coffee, she gazed out at the ocean and observed the fisherman put out to sea.

  She had often sat in the early-morning hours in her parents’ fish shop near the docks and seen a similar sight. Her mother would sometimes make her a special breakfast of eggs and kippers, while her twin sister Dani—ever the more adventurous one—would tag along with their Da to greet those fisherman who were already inbound with their catch.

  She hadn’t been able to reach Dani in days and wondered what exotic part of the world her sister was visiting. She only hoped that Dani’s busy schedule would soon allow
time for a call home for news of when they might be able to get together again.

  With her coffee becoming lukewarm and the growing heat from the rising sun reminding her that time was short this morning, Elizabeth headed to the kitchen. She was still the only one there. She used the time to experiment with a new dessert recipe she wanted to enter in the annual Silvershire Cooking Contest at the end of the month—a trifle doused with a sour cherry liqueur that a local distillery was making.

  Concentrating, she selected a recipe for the cake portion of the trifle that would be firm enough, but not too heavy. She hoped that when the competition came in a few weeks, she would be able to place in the contest once more.

  Not that she needed the glory. But the awards had brought her work to the attention of editors at magazines like Gourmet and Bon Appetit, resulting in invitations to other cooking expos and contests. They had given her a chance to see more of the world.

  She smiled and thought that maybe she wasn’t all that different from her wandering sister. Easing two pans with the cake batter into the oven, Elizabeth was turning her attention to the filling and sauce for the trifle when Natalie popped into the kitchen.

  “G’mornin’, Nat,” she called out and wiped her hands free of some cake batter with the towel tucked into her apron strings.

  Natalie walked over and slipped an arm over her shoulders. “Is it a good morning, Lizzy Bee?” she teased with a too-obvious wiggle of her eyebrows.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes upward. “Nat, even if it were a good morning that way, do I strike you as the type to kiss and tell?”

  Natalie pointed her index finger in Elizabeth’s face. “So you did kiss. You don’t need to tell me since it’s obvious from the look on your face.”

  Elizabeth raised her hands to her cheeks as if to hide what Natalie had seen, but then dropped them back down as the guilt behind that action registered. “You absolutely cannot know that from just one look at my face.”

  Chuckling, Natalie headed to the door to the cellar, but paused before going down. “You’re right. I can’t. But you haven’t denied it, so I guess I’m not so far off base.”

  With that, the younger woman flounced down the stairs, leaving Elizabeth to wonder what she would do when Aidan showed up for work. If he showed up for work. He had seemed conflicted last night.

  Join the club, she thought, admitting that she had been just as puzzled by their rather pleasant, but equally awkward interlude.

  But she was here this morning and ready to face him. She had to be here. Plus, she couldn’t let him get the wrong idea about what was happening and how much he affected her.

  She wondered again what he would do this morning if he came to work. She got the sense that whenever things got too complicated or didn’t go his way, Aidan was the kind who left.

  She only hoped that if he did decide to go, he would honor his promise and not leave her in a lurch. Especially not over the weekend when things would be crazier than ever.

  With that thought in mind, she returned her attention to the dessert, the day’s menu and a last-minute trip to the markets for ingredients to complete the chef’s specials for the day.

  A footfall close by made him bolt from bed, gun in hand. Whenever he was on assignment, he slept with his weapon within easy reach, tucked beneath the mattress with the handle sticking out for a quick draw.

  Lucia held up her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry I woke you, but Walker’s here. He’s got some news.”

  Aidan lowered the gun. “Give me a few minutes, please.”

  Once dressed, Aidan stepped out into the main area of the suite where Walker Shaw sat on one of the couches, a shuttered look on his face.

  “I gather there’s problems,” he said and took a seat opposite Walker.

  “You look like hell,” his colleague said. “Rough night?”

  “Late night with the Sparrow. First at a local club and then after, when she went for an early-morning stroll,” Lucia advised and brought over a tray with a pot of coffee and some cups. “I had room service bring this up. Figured you could use the jolt, Aidan.”

  “Thanks, Lucia,” Aidan said.

  Walker added his own thanks and then asked, “Were you able to see where she went? MI6 says there’s been a lot of chatter on the wires lately about the Sparrow. She may be on another assignment here.”

  Aidan shook his head while filling up a cup with the heavenly smelling brew. He loaded it up with a few sugars, but kept it black since as Lucia had guessed, he needed a jump start this morning. “Someone slipped out through a secret passage in the cellar of the restaurant. Definitely dressed for a covert op and she was armed…with Mitch’s gun.”

  Walker paused with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. “How do you know that?”

  “Although earlier ballistics had the Sparrow carrying a Sigma SW9F, she tucked an HK Mark 23 into her holster. Mitch’s gun was the same make and has been missing since his murder. Plus, it’s not that common a weapon,” Aidan advised.

  “Connect the dots, huh? But what about connecting the dots to Prince Reginald’s murder?” Walker challenged and shifted his gaze to Lucia.

  “Nothing yet.”

  Walker cursed beneath his breath. “Not good, guys. Corbett called this morning. A friend has warned him that the local tabloid—”

  “The Quiz?” Lucia asked.

  Walker nodded. “The Silvershire Inquisitor, or, as you noted, the Quiz. Seems one of the reporters has a lead on Prince Reginald’s last night alive.”

  “If this Quiz is a gossip rag, why the worry?” Aidan wondered out loud as he sipped on the hot sugar-laced coffee.

  “Because unfortunately, the story seems to have some truth behind it,” Walker advised.

  As Lucia fixed herself a cup of coffee, she asked, “So what is the story?”

  “It seems the prince met an attractive young lady earlier in the day—slim athletic build, dark-haired.”

  “The Sparrow?” both Aidan and Lucia said in unison.

  Walker shrugged. “Fits the description, doesn’t it? Anyway, rumor has it that the prince locked himself in the room with this lady for a night of pleasure.”

  Aidan laughed harshly. “From what I saw in the file about the prince, that seems to be pretty routine behavior. So why the worry about this magazine’s article?”

  “Cocaine and murder,” Walker answered quickly. “There had been some hint of drug use before with the Prince. A few months ago, immediately after the prince’s death, the Quiz ran an article claiming that the prince had overdosed. No respectable news service would touch the piece.”

  “And now?” Lucia pressed.

  “The paper claims to have proof positive that the prince was not only using drugs on his last night, but that he was murdered.”

  “Do the results of the toxicology reports confirm the drug use?” Lucia questioned and at that, Walker leaned down and extracted some papers from his briefcase. Laying them out on the coffee table between them, he motioned to the results.

  “I’ve reviewed them myself and it seems clear. The prince had cocaine in his system along with a poison. The drugs are embarrassing to the royal family and the murder—that may add more fuel to the political fire the Union for Democracy keeps stoking.”

  Aidan leaned over, grabbed one of the papers and turned it so he could get a better view. Examining the results, he said, “So the prince got his coke and in addition, a little something extra—digitalis.”

  “Not a hell of a lot, but enough to stop his heart,” Walker explained, and then continued. “The thing is, it wasn’t pharmaceutical-grade digitalis.”

  Lucia peered at the documents, obviously unsure, and inclined her head toward the papers. “How do you know?”

  Walker flipped through a few pages of the report until he got to one page. He offered that to Lucia who took it and read while he explained further. “When digitalis is sold commercially, whether for injection or as a pill, it’s generally mixed with other ingr
edients. The analysis of the chemical breakdown solely showed the basic components of digitalis and cocaine.”

  “And one gets close to unadulterated digitalis how?” Aidan jumped in.

  This time it was Lucia who offered up the explanation. “According to this report, digitalis can be extracted from the leaves of a relatively common plant—digitalis purpurea—otherwise known as foxglove.”

  “Foxglove?”

  At his question, Lucia handed him the report, which included a picture of a plant.

  Aidan read aloud some of the description of the plant. “‘The common foxglove can be found widely throughout Europe and the British Isles. Foxgloves have hairy leaves and spiky purple flowers in July. The leaves and seeds can be used for medicinal purposes as they contain cardiac stimulants.’

  “Elizabeth’s gardens are full of all kinds of plants, but I don’t recollect seeing anything tall and purple.”

  There was silence for a moment as both Lucia and Walker considered his statement. Then Lucia said, “It’s August. That description mentioned that the plant flowers in July.”

  “So it’s possible the plant looks very little like this picture right now. Do you think you can get some more information on the Net while I talk to Elizabeth’s friends this morning?”

  “Don’t you think that might make Ms. Moore suspicious?” Walker asked and began collecting the assorted papers he had laid out for inspection.

  Aidan took a last gulp of his coffee and rose from the table. “It might, but it doesn’t seem like we have much choice. If the Quiz knew about the cocaine and the murder, what’s to say they won’t find out about the Lazlo Group and blow our cover?”

  “Aidan’s right. We need to act quickly to get more information,” Lucia added.

  Walker hesitated, clearly uncertain about their plans, but he finally relented. With a nod, he said, “I’ll have to trust your judgment. Especially since it seems from past info that someone is feeding the Quiz news in order to discredit the royal family. In the meantime, do you have anything to definitively identify Elizabeth Moore as the Sparrow?”