My mother clears her throat. “Holly, I apologize if you think I expect too much from you. It’s just … I see so much of my younger self in you, and I remember how unhappy I was at your age. How I felt … like I was just floating aimlessly through life. I want better for you. I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy, Mom.”
“Really?” She reaches across the table, takes my hand in hers. “Are you truly?”
“Yes,” I say, but it’s after a moment of hesitation, enough for both of us to catch it and understand the importance.
“Despite what you think,” my mother says, “I am proud of you and Tina. I love you both very, very much. But Tina … the direction of her life has already been set. She’s married. She has the boys. She paints when she can. But you, Holly, I see the future wide open for you. I see you doing so many different things, and then … then I open my eyes and I see you are still here, living less than twenty minutes away from me. I want more for you. I want you to live life.”
“I am living life.”
“Are you?”
“I guess we all live life differently.”
“I guess.”
My mother retracts her hand, takes another bite of her slice. I just stare at mine, no longer having any appetite.
“As long as this life is the life you want,” she says, “then I’m happy for you. I can’t say I won’t try to push you again, but if I do please understand why I’m doing it. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“Yes, Mom, I’m very happy,” I say, and this time I don’t hesitate at all.
Thirty-One
For some reason I expect Nova to be the one who picks me up. Instead, it’s a small man with a shaven head and a pointy nose who introduces himself simply as Philippe. He wears a long brown raincoat and holds an umbrella.
“Please, please”—motioning me toward a gray sedan parked on the edge of the runway—“let us get out of the rain.”
The cargo jet did not land in Paris but at an airstrip located fifteen miles south of the city. The entire area is surrounded by farmland. Cows that haven’t been ushered into barns lie on the ground beneath trees and watch us dully.
Once we load into the sedan, Philippe asks, “How was the flight?”
“Eight hours with no real seat, no toilet, and no service carts—how do you think it was?”
We start driving past farms. Eventually we get on a highway called the N12. Philippe doesn’t play the radio, he doesn’t talk. After eight hours of listening to myself think, the silence becomes much too unnerving.
“So are you a company man or do you work off the books like me?”
Philippe moves his jaw around, like he’s chewing something, before answering. “I’m an operator with the Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion. It’s a—”
“Counterterrorism unit of the French National Police.” I smile at him. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”
“Yes, well, that is what I am officially.”
“And what are you unofficially?”
He gives me a sideways grin. “Why are you in this line of work?”
I think briefly of Nova when I say, “Work is work.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Is that so?”
“You have a fire in your eyes. You have a passion.”
“If you’re trying to get in my pants, you’re going to have to do better than that.”
He holds up his left hand, just long enough for the headlights of an oncoming car to illuminate his silver wedding band. “Married now fifteen years, have a beautiful wife and three children at home.”
“Good for you.”
“Yes,” he says, nodding slowly, his voice suddenly somber. “Yes, well, I do what I do to keep them safe. But it’s never enough. When I work officially I have to deal with the law. But unofficially …”
Staring out my window, watching the quickly passing buildings and lights drenched in rain, I say, “Laws are meant to be broken.”
Philippe goes silent for another minute. He has a thoughtful yet conflicted look on his face. Finally he clears his throat.
“There is a man very well known around Paris. He is a bad man much like Roland Delano was before he was killed. Speaking of which, I’m told we have you to thank for that.”
“I do what I can.”
“Well, the world is better off without him, trust me on that. But now this other man, I fear he plans to take Roland’s place. He already has his hand in drugs, pornography, weapons, and money laundering. We know all of this, but of course we cannot touch him. That’s the law for you. It protects the worst of the criminals.”
We drive for another minute in silence. After we merge onto the A12, I speak.
“What did he do to you?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said I had a fire in my eyes, a passion, that that’s what makes me do this work. It’s the same for you, only when you speak of this man there’s a darkness in your voice.”
“He was responsible for the death of my parents.”
“How?”
Philippe shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What’s his name?”
“Why—do you plan to kill him just as you killed Roland?”
“If I have the time.”
“Let’s stop talking about him. Our worry right now is Alayna Gramont.”
“Who else is here?”
“You mean besides your associate Nova?”
“Yes.”
“Two agents from England, both MI6, and an agent from Russia who’s FSB. Tell me—do you know what is on Roland’s flash drive?”
“No, and to be honest, I don’t care.”
“You should. Because if the flash drive and the code fall into the wrong hands …” He shakes his head. “I don’t even want to imagine the consequences.”
“Let me guess—the end of the world as we know it?”
He glances at me, and in the dark I can see that his face has actually paled. “That would be the very least of our worries.”
Thirty-Two
Our safe house is a two-bedroom flat in a tall and ornate building overlooking the Seine. Apparently it’s one of the places rented out by Philippe’s unit for covert operations such as this.
Nova is the only one waiting inside. He has a Beretta in his hand, and he has it aimed at the door when we let ourselves in. Then, once the door is closed and locked, he lowers the pistol and smiles at me.
“There’s my girl,” he says, in that cheerful way of his. He even steps closer and places his hand on my shoulder, making me think that he’s not too sore after our little spat earlier in the week. “How was the flight?”
“Do you know what Walter had me fly in on?”
Grinning now, he nods.
“You’re an asshole.”
“Among other things.” He turns toward Philippe, his face suddenly serious. “Boylan left twenty minutes ago to relieve Reed.”
Philippe glances at his watch. “Very good.”
I say, “And who exactly are Boylan and Reed?”
“The MI6 guys,” Nova says. “Boris is the Russian and he’s stationed on top of the building across from Gramont’s place.”
“His name is actually Boris?”
Philippe says to Nova, “Want to get her situated? I have to use the restroom.”
“My pleasure.” Nova motions for me to follow him as Philippe leaves us. We come into one of the bedrooms where tables have been set up with computers and papers and surveillance photos. He grabs one of the photos and hands it to me. “Remember her?”
“Yeah, that’s Alayna.”
“If you remember back in Vegas, she didn’t have any guards on her. The only protection she had was when she was with Delano and his men.”
“And should I assume she has guards now?”
“You should.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
I glance back down at the photograph, the sl
im woman in the smart pantsuit, blond hair and sunglasses. Around her is an entourage of at least two men in suits, also wearing shades.
“You said before she used to be some kind of model, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Why did she quit?”
“From what I’m told she got too old and somehow fell in with Delano.”
“How old is too old?”
Nova grins. “Twenty-eight.”
Philippe enters the room. He has two bottles of Evian and hands one of them to me.
“How much have you informed her?” he asks.
“Just about the guards,” Nova says. “At least the guards we know of right now.”
Philippe takes a swallow of his water, nods slowly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if more show up tomorrow.”
“Do we know where the buy’s going to be?” I ask.
Philippe shakes his head. “Just that it’s at noon. We’ll have to follow her from her place to God knows where. It’s my guess it’ll be somewhere in the city.”
“Where is her place?”
“Technically it’s Delano’s place. And it’s not a place so much as a mansion. It sits right along the Avenue La Motte Picquet and overlooks the Parc du Champs de Mars, which is where—”
“The Eiffel Tower is located,” I finish for him. “Sounds like pretty snazzy digs.”
“The rest of the team has been watching her for the past three days,” Philippe says. “After Delano’s memorial, she hasn’t left the mansion once.”
“There was a memorial for that guy?”
“Believe it or not”—Philippe makes a sour face—“that monster had many friends.”
I think briefly of the man Philippe mentioned on the ride here, the one who might take over in Delano’s place.
“What about the code?” I ask.
Nova says, “What about it?”
“It doesn’t make sense. Why would someone want to buy the code without the flash drive?”
Both men look at each other, look back at me, and like that an extra piece of the puzzle falls into place.
“Unless,” I say, “they plan to get their hands on the flash drive.”
“Impossible,” Philippe says. “Your government has that sealed more tightly than your nuclear weapons. What we have been speculating is whether there is more than one flash drive.”
“But I thought Delano wore the only one.”
“You don’t think he would have a copy?”
I turn and walk to the window and stare down at the traffic below us. I think about that night in Vegas, at the party, the man greeting me with the flash drive around his neck, the gold glinting in the light.
“Actually no, I don’t. If he had more than one copy, why would he go to such lengths to protect the flash drive he wore?”
“If he wanted it truly protected,” Philippe says, “he would have put it in a safe.”
Turning back around, I say, “But safes can be broken into. They’re not one hundred percent secure. Keeping the flash drive around his neck at all times was his own personal form of security. He believed nothing could touch him, hence nothing could get at the flash drive.”
Nova says, “Let’s not waste time going back and forth on this. The facts are clear. Someone is coming to Paris to buy the code, and it’s our job to figure out who that someone is.” He turns to me. “I’m assuming you didn’t get much sleep on the flight over here.”
“You would be assuming right.”
“There are a handful of cots in the other bedroom. Go lie down and try to get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
Thirty-Three
But I can’t sleep. The cot is too uncomfortable. Nova and Philippe continue to talk in the next room. After a while, someone else arrives—one of the MI6 guys—and a third voice is added to the mix.
I toss and turn. I hold my breath, try to asphyxiate myself into sleep. I regret not bringing sleeping pills.
Eventually I get up and join the men out in the flat. The new man is Reed. It’s clear he’s MI6: broad shoulders, strong face, piercing eyes.
Nova takes me aside, asks if I’m okay.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“Jet lag,” I say, but it’s a sorry excuse. The truth is I keep thinking about what my mother told me during our dinner. Never once has she opened up like that before, and now she had to go do it and mention my father and for some reason that’s all I’ve been thinking about. Not the man I knew—the coldhearted killer—but the man who brought roses and wrote poetry.
Philippe and Reed sit off in the corner conferencing about something. I stand with Nova on the other side of the room.
I whisper to him, “Do you buy his theory that the flash drive is really that secure?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Then why are we here, Nova? Why would someone want to buy the code if they can’t even use it?”
He stands there, rubbing his fingers over the stubble on his chin. Finally he shrugs and says, “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”
I wander into the bedroom with the tables and computers. I sort through the surveillance photos, the reports. Everything is written in French. Daily reports on Delano’s residence, on Alayna Gramont’s movements.
I sit down at one of the computers and pull up Google. I put in Roland Delano’s name. Over one hundred thousand hits come up. One site gives his background: a man born in Egypt but raised in America, a rich man who gave huge amounts of money to charities. Another site paints a darker picture: the arms dealer, the ties to known terrorists, the murderer.
Many of the sites refer to his death in Las Vegas. A mob hit, one site claims, while another points the finger at a competing arms dealer.
I bring up the website for Le Monde, one of Paris’s top newspapers. I search Delano’s name. The names that are associated I scribble down on a notepad beside me.
I try the same thing at another Paris newspaper site, then another. I keep scribbling down names. Out of the handful I have listed, only one sticks out.
I start searching the name. Looking at the sites that come up. Reading over the information posted.
At one point I yawn and rub my eyes. I look at the time in the corner of the screen and am surprised to see that two hours have passed.
I stand up, stretch, tilt my neck back and forth. My entire body aches.
I go out into the rest of the apartment and find only Philippe. He sits in a chair with a book opened on his lap. He has reading glasses on, and when he looks up at me he shifts the glasses down on his nose so he can look over the rims.
“I’m on watch,” he says. “Reed and Nova went in to sleep.”
“I found out his name.”
“Whose?”
“Xerxes.”
Philippe curls his lip, shakes his head. “That’s not even his real name.”
“No, it’s not. But that’s what he calls himself and what the rest of the world knows him as.”
“You look tired.”
“I know why he had your parents killed.”
“Go in and try to sleep for a few hours.”
“Your mother was a witness. She was going to testify.”
“Please, I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Of course Xerxes couldn’t have your mom testify, so he had her and your dad killed. Made it look like a random drive-by shooting, like they were just collateral damage. It was too obvious and the police took him in for questioning. But they had no evidence on him, nothing to charge him with. They had no choice but to let him go.”
Philippe slams the book shut. His face is red. Glaring up at me, he says, “That’s right. The man is untouchable.”
“Nobody’s untouchable.”
“Why do you care, anyway?”
“I’m just curious.”
Philippe continues to glare back at me. A long moment passes. Finally he takes a breath, shakes his head, and opens the book.
I lie down anyway. I stare at the ceiling. I try not to think about anything. I try to clear my mind. But somehow Karen slips into that empty void.
And then I’m asleep and dreaming and back in Iraq. Karen has already killed herself. I’m left with what she told me. I’ve already talked to my father. I’ve made my decision. And then I’m waiting in the porta potty, just waiting, and when I open the door I suddenly stop because it’s not the monster I’m expecting.
No, this is a completely different monster.
My father smiles and says, Surprise.
Thirty-Four
“She’s on the move.”
These are the very first words I’ve heard Boris speak, and as they come across the radio his heavy Russian accent is unmistakable.
Next is Philippe’s voice: “Reed, do you have a visual?”
“Affirmative.”
Nova is with Reed in a car parked two blocks down from Delano’s mansion. Boris is still on top of the building across the street. I’m nowhere close but still I can visualize it in my mind: Boris peering over the roof with binoculars, keeping Alayna Gramont and her entourage of guards in sight as they get into a car. The car will be something flashy, just like the mansion, if not a limo then maybe a Bentley. Once she is inside the car with her guards, they will be on the move. It’s eleven thirty and the buy is supposed to be in a half hour. Reed and Nova will follow in their car for at least three or four blocks, depending on Gramont’s direction, then they will pass it off to either Philippe or Boylan and myself.
Boris: “They’re getting into a black Mercedes SUV.”
Damn, I was somewhat close.
Boylan hasn’t spoken the entire hour we’ve been in the car. Just like his counterpart, he has broad shoulders and a strong face. In fact, they could be brothers if it wasn’t for Boylan’s reddish hair and green eyes.
Holly Lin Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 12