The Shadow Artist

by James Grayson

  Lockard watched Winter and the man enter the house, but waited until the seven-minute mark to exit his vehicle and head in the opposite direction of the house. But after only six steps, he heard a rumble and saw a car, a Porsche SUV, exiting the easement. The man drove, Winter in the passenger seat. No Edgar.

  Lockard slipped back into the Range Rover and watched them pull to the corner. As the Porsche rolled to a stop, its taillights glowing back at Lockard, he tapped the wheel, looked up at the building, and contemplated his options.

  Take them both now. Follow them and take the daughter. Stay and wait for Edgar.

  Curiosity.

  It may have killed the cat, but it’d fed plenty a lion.

  The Porsche turned and accelerated, and Lockard finally got a full shot of the Aryan man. His breath hitched with surprise, and he found his hands caressing the steering wheel. Though he hadn’t seen him in a good two years, he knew exactly who he was.

  Jack Pope.

  And one of Lockard’s questions was answered for him.

  Twenty-Two

  They had a saying in the CIA. A tired spy was a dangerous spy. After sleeping half a night in the front seat of a stolen car, and another half on a sofa that couldn’t fit an Olsen twin, Alex was on edge. Add to that near-death by bombing, being shot at —twice—and sparring with a man on the twentieth floor of an open-construction building, all within two days, Alex felt about as composed as an injured bobcat.

  So when Jack offered to drive, Alex took the opportunity to rest her eyes. She would let her mind wander to see if there were any clues to her father buried in deep in the subconscious. Or maybe just get some sleep.

  As she laid her head back, her thoughts drifted to the memory of a day not long after her parents had supposedly died. Ginger, standing in the kitchen, leaned against the counter while cradling a cup of tea. Standing quietly as Alex did her homework at the table.

  “It will get easier,” Ginger said, startling Alex and making her realize that she in fact hadn’t been working. She had been staring ahead. And then she felt it, the involuntary tear rolling down her cheek.

  Alex wiped it away and nodded.

  Ginger said, “Like a person who has lost a limb. They say there’s sometimes an itch there, as if the limb were not gone at all.” She tilted her head and walked over to Alex, placed a hand on her shoulder. “Eventually the mind realizes that the limb is gone. It doesn’t forget it, but it closes off the nerves to it, numbs the sensation. I imagine that’s what this will be like for you.”

  Alex bit her lip. She took in a breath and said, “I feel like he’s still around.”

  “Like that, yes.”

  “No,” Alex turned and said, “Not like that at all. Because I don’t feel like Mom is here. Just him. Like he’s watching over me. Why?” She slapped the table with an open palm. “He was never around when he was alive, so, what? He’s making up for it now, when he’s gone?”

  “It’s normal.”

  Her throat burned as she said, “I’d rather have Mom with me. I’d rather have her spirit here.”

  “Maybe they’re both here.” She smiled and looked around the kitchen.

  “I don’t feel like they are.”

  “It will pass, I promise.” Ginger softened her brow and squeezed Alex’s shoulder. “It will get easier. That feeling will eventually just…fade.”

  But it hadn’t.

  Ever since that day, Alex had felt it. There had been no concrete proof, not a single thread of evidence that he was still alive. There’d been nothing that gave her hope or even pause from that day forward. Nothing that unseated the belief that her parents had indeed been in that restaurant, had both been taken, had both died. Up until two days ago, there’d been nothing but silence from either of them.

  And with the same burning anger in her throat, Alex closed her eyes and tried to forget.

  By the time they pulled into Marlborough, the temperature had dropped a good ten to fifteen degrees, and the snow clouds hung above them like wet gauze. The head of the storm had finally moved inland, and was about to pound the countryside and then London.

  Alex looked outside and took stock of the scene before them.

  Few people were on the streets of the traditional English market town, and those who were out shuffled from one heated shop to the next, bundled in wool overcoats and hats. Straight ahead was what she figured to be the town hall, a Dutch-style, red brick and light stucco building with prominent steps behind it. The rest of the buildings were from the sixteenth century or so. Looming above and beyond all of them, a castle-like tower displayed a huge clock that read six thirty.

  She checked the phone again to make sure she still had a signal. If Alex didn’t hear back from Denise soon, they’d miss their chance to find Edgar today.

  “No word yet?” Jack asked.

  Shaking her head, Alex squeezed the cell phone. She felt like a super computer that had just analyzed a thousand points of data, eliminating scenario after scenario and settling on the one with the highest probability. The answer had burrowed into the core of her being the moment the fly-shop owner had confirmed Edgar had been in the UK.

  Edgar would need a major city for convenient meetings, access to banks, access to materials or drops. The city would have to be international, a place with many nationalities represented, many languages spoken, and what was more international than London?

  But if Alex knew anything at all about her father, a shred of his personal wants and needs, then she knew he would be near a chalk stream. But not just any chalk stream. If in Britain, if he was still working, he would live near the River Kennet.

  Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. A central London number that Alex didn’t recognize, but she answered it.

  Denise said, “I didn’t find exactly what you were looking for, but I did have some luck.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, there were no houses or cars bought by individuals in cash that would fit your make. A few footballers and a US stock picker, but none were Caucasian. At least none that led back to Marlborough, and not in the last ten years.”

  “Maybe we need to go further back, fifteen or even twenty-five years.”

  “That would require access to the archives and could take days,” Denise said. “But we may not need to, anyway. I have a property that has been paying its municipal land levies in cash every year for the last nineteen.”

  Alex sat up a bit straighter. “The owner’s name?”

  “Not exactly. The property is listed as a reference number and the owner is a limited liability corporation.”

  An LLC. “A holding company?”

  “Right, and the owner is another LLC listed only as a Cayman entity.”

  “Offshore, so the owner or owners are hidden.”

  “Yup, and the address is at Ugland House.”

  Just about every hedge fund in the world had an address in the Caymans, and the building that acted as the local address was Ugland House. It represented thousands of addressees.

  “So either you found a rogue trader, or my rogue pretending to be a hedge fund trader.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. I have calls in, but they won’t be back until tomorrow.”

  “I need it sooner,” Alex said.

  “Best I can do, Alex.”

  “What’s the entity’s name?”

  “RiverRock Ventures.”

  Not an obvious connection to Edgar, but still, if he were hiding out here on these rivers, it sounded right. Staring up the street at Marlborough Town Hall, Alex realized she may have the answer right in front of her. “Denise, did you say you have a reference number on those tax transactions?”

  “I did.”

  Alex drew Agent Wainscott’s ID card from her pocket. “Give it to me.”

  Pulling the white cape tight around his body, Edgar Winter eased from one uneven shadow to the next, as he made his way down the snow-draped Bishops Avenue in the posh London district of East Fin
chley.

  This particular street would have video surveillance devices triggered by movement, audio triggered by sound, and MI6 personnel on standby, reviewing footage, listening to conversations, ready to react to a threat in mere seconds. If caught by the eye in the sky, Edgar figured he would have less than a full minute before the British ghosts descended.

  After all, Bishops Avenue housed the most important figure in MI6.

  Edgar stopped twenty-two yards from the front entrance of the townhouse, studying the second floor through the windows. Not much to go on from here, but he’d seen schematics of the place and was confident he could make his way through the dark. Still, the four-story, white stone structure looked more like a federal bank than a house. Grant, old boy, lived like royalty. Noting seven cameras and four motion detectors on the structure, Edgar slipped past one street camera and between the next set of bushes and into a shadow cast by a pillar. He checked his watch.

  He slowed his breathing and willed himself not to rub his hands together against the cold. Keeping the white exhale of each breath to a minimum by breathing through his nose, he stood as still as the pillar he leaned against, and waited.

  The truck arrived two minutes later, a full minute early. Light gray and with the words Paulson’s Spirits scripted on the sides, it paused at the entrance as the iron gates began to swing open.

  Predictability, Grant. You’ve gotten soft, old boy.

  After turning the cap inside out to a gray matching the shade on the truck, Edgar dashed to the far side of the entry, an angle out of view of the gate-top camera, and stepped up onto the bumper without a bounce as the driver drove forward. With one hand, Edgar swiveled the cape around, gray side out, and hid against the vehicle before passing the next camera.

  The truck stopped ten seconds later.

  Ears on full alert, Edgar waited as the driver exited the cab and crunched in the snow to the back. The moment he heard the words, “What the—” Edgar dove off the bumper and tackled the man in the snow.

  Edgar had the easy advantage, size and surprise. He had the driver in a choke hold within two seconds, and after twenty—and a series of kicks and a single grunt—the man slumped into the snow.

  Edgar hurried, swinging the doors open and yanking the driver by the collar up and into the back of the truck.

  Too many cases of wine. The man’s legs wouldn’t fit.

  Once Grant’s crate was placed on the ground, Edgar was able to stuff the driver in all the way. He strapped the man’s ankles and hands together with silver duct tape, hog style, then wrapped his mouth tight. Patting him on a leg, Edgar apologized.

  He removed the cape and took the man’s hat, then closed the truck and carried Grant’s delivery to the front door.

  As expected, the butler greeted him. “You’re new,” he said.

  Edgar tipped the hat to hide his face from the entry camera. “Just for the evening, Thomas. Not to worry. Harold will return next week.”

  Turning away, the butler said, “They’re supposed to advise us. We don’t like surprises around here.”

  “Right. Sorry about that.”

  “Let’s get on with it.” The butler walked through the foyer and stopped at an arched door halfway down the first hall. He opened it and began down the stairs.

  Edgar put down the crate and followed.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the butler turned. “Where did you put—”

  Edgar had him choked out faster than the driver. No need for tape on this one.

  He ascended the stairs, grabbed the crate, and carried it up two floors of the curved grand staircase. Classical music echoed from the library, Chopin’s nocturnes. He walked straight down the hall and stopped in the doorway.

  Grant sat in a maroon paisley silk robe with his head down, reading. A fire flickered under the stone mantel behind him. A peaceful evening about to end badly.

  Edgar knocked on the doorframe.

  Looking up, Grant called past him, “Thomas! What the hell is the delivery boy doing up here? Thomas!”

  Edgar dropped the crate, shattering the contents and exploding red wine and glass across the floor.

  “Good God!” Grant leapt from the chair and backed away.

  Taking off his cap, Edgar said, “Evening, Grant. Long time.”

  “What are you—Edgar!”

  “We need to talk.” Edgar took a step forward, his flat black SIG Sauer P229 drawn to the side.

  “I…I…” Grant backed to the fireplace, burned himself, and stumbled forward.

  Edgar said, “It’s about Moss.”

  “What about him?” Grant rubbed his arm. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “There are some things happening in Virginia that you may or may not know about. That doesn’t matter to me.” Edgar waved the SIG.

  Grant waited, like a good schoolboy, staring at Edgar.

  Edgar continued, “And it’s come together for me, all of it, except for one piece.”

  “What’s that?” Grant asked in a sullen voice.

  “I’m going to ask you to think back, way back, to a night in 1995. April 12, to be exact. Remember that day?”

  Grant’s eyes widened, like a fawn seeing headlamps for the very first time. Paralyzed by the oncoming lights.

  “Edgar said. “So do I.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing in here, but I assure you, I had nothing to do with any bombing. Not here, not in Spain. Not ever.”

  “I believe that,” Edgar said, taking another step forward. “But here’s the problem. I’ve uncovered the archives from the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia. Spanish Intelligence, if you don’t remember.”

  “Fuck off. What of it?” Grant asked.

  “Records have a call being placed from the Madrid office on April 11. And then another on the twelfth. Two hours before the bombing.”

  Grant blushed. The man actually blushed. Forget being out of the field for a while. This guy had lost all his skills sitting behind a desk.

  Edgar shook his head. “You know who those calls went to.”

  Grant opened and shut his mouth three times, like a fish in the grass.

  Edgar waited, letting the silence build. Until he said, “Tell me about Moss.”

  Twenty-Three

  Tearing Edgar’s profile drawing from her sketchbook, Alex told Jack to park on the far side of the town hall, away from the front entrance. God knew what kind of network of eyes her father had out here. The last thing she wanted to do was tip him off minutes before they found him.

  As she rolled the drawing and placed it in her pocket, Alex felt Jack staring at her. He was holding something, and she did a double take.

  “Jack?”

  He flipped the flat black SIG Sauer P229 pistol around and handed it to Alex. “To look authentic,” he said, nodding at the town hall. “Oh, and this.” He pulled a shoulder holster from the middle glove box.

  She stared at him, then held up the gun. “Where…or should I say, how did you get this?” Personal ownership of firearms were illegal on the mainland of UK. Other than specially permitted shotguns and muzzle loaders, pistols were virtually impossible to attain.

  He gave a small shrug. “Hanna purchased it a few months after her husband died. I didn’t ask where.”

  “She lives in a safe neighborhood. Why would she risk having this?”

  “Right, but she does all that medical work for charity. Some tough blokes come her way, yeah? And she’s a single woman, all alone in a house like that.”

  “Seems excessive.” Alex turned the SIG over, playing along. A P229, it was—conveniently—the same model she carried in the field, and it felt comfortable in her grip. Accurate, reliable, and small enough to be concealed, yet powerful enough to stop a large man, it was the ideal weapon for her. “And…she just lent it to you?”

  Jack tilted his head. “You can say I took it on loan. She hides it away in her office.”

  “Not well enough,” Alex muttered,
checking the magazine—full—then the slide. One round chambered.

  She wasn’t sure what concerned her most: Jack claiming Hanna owned a gun or saying that he’d borrowed it from her. Was he trying to blow his cover with Alex—did he no longer care? Either way, Alex was thankful to have some protection again. She had felt naked all week. Jack’s lies could wait.

  The SIG has a double-action trigger with no manual safety, so she uncocked the hammer with the lever to be sure she didn’t shoot herself, then slipped the holster on as she followed Jack into the hall. Since it was Christmas week, the place was open, but dead. The long marble hallway was barely lit, and their footsteps echoed like a death march all the way to the tax office. There, behind a black steel desk that looked to have been built before the war, sat a woman named Miss Pinkerton.

  Alex had to announce their names to her three times. Then Miss Pinkerton stared so hard at the Metro Pol ID card, Alex was initially concerned she was memorizing it. But when she said Wainscott’s name aloud to herself, Alex wondered if Miss Pinkerton had been around as long as the building itself.

  Finally, she said, “You’re the first visitors I’ve had all day.”

  Shocking.

  Alex said, “We won’t take up much of your time, but we’re conducting an investigation and we just need to see the records room. We’re looking for the address of a person of interest.”

  Miss Pinkerton studied them for a long five seconds and frowned. “We can’t have you rummaging about. There’s a system in employ here, of filing and the like.”

  “I assure you that we will leave everything exactly as we find it.”

  “Afraid not, Mrs. Wainscott. You’ll need special permission for that, and I’m neither able nor willing to give it.”

  Seriously? What the hell was she protecting back there anyway? Alex was afraid she’d have to shoot the old bird to get past, when Jack said, “And what if we have the reference number, and all we need is the owner’s address?”