The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  “I’d need half the day to give you that story, but the abridged version is he’s a private detective we hired to look for Ghorbani. This tape was his signal, so he’ll have left a message at his hotel. That’s probably where Kate went.”

  “But the police never saw her,” Sonia reminded him.

  His spirits deflated, remembering Kate had left again by the time the security detail arrived. She couldn’t have been here to meet Winnie, but Conor had to believe his appearance was somehow connected. It was all he had. “Right. He’ll still have left a message. I need to get another taxi.”

  He scanned the empty plaza, wondering if it might be more efficient to simply run to the hotel since it was less than a mile away. As he considered it, one of the stone pylons in the parking area caught his attention, and in that instant Conor became a true believer.

  “Jesus, Winnie, you’re right. You’re nothing like a dozy muppet, are you?”

  When Sonia caught up with him, he’d already pulled the ugly, rain-soaked blazer from the pylon and was searching through it. He feared whatever message Winnie had left would be unreadable by this time, but then found an empty cigarette package in one of the pockets. Fishing inside it, he pulled out a bone-dry slip of paper and unfolded it.

  Hotel Imperial on Krakovska. Room 347.

  “It’s one of the streets off Wenceslas Square,” Sonia said, reading it over his shoulder. “I’ll get the Ruger and come with you. We can use my car.”

  “No. It’s possible this isn’t even related to Kate. I need you to stay here in case she comes back. I left the second mobile up on the coffee table. We’ll stay in touch that way. Just get me your car keys and tell me how to get to the hotel.”

  “You think Ghorbani is there? That this private detective has found him?”

  “If he has, it will be a real stunner for Frank. He thinks the guy is long gone.” Seeing her confusion, Conor again recalled he was holding far more information than he’d shared, and there was no time for anything but the most perfunctory details. “Frank arrived in Prague tonight. I just came from meeting with him at the British Embassy. Things are fairly desperate inside MI6 just now because it looks like Ghorbani’s made a holy show of them. He was never a double agent at all. He’s a loyal Iranian agent, and he’s been pulling their wire for years.”

  While driving towards the bridge that would take him from the atmospheric streets of the Little Quarter to the smooth asphalt of the New Town, he considered phoning Frank with an update but talked himself out of it, realizing it would mean disclosing Winnie’s continued role in their operation. Until he had a better handle on the facts, Conor thought it a bad idea to test the patience of his boss, who was already under enormous pressure and operating on little sleep.

  During their meeting at the Embassy, Frank had explained that the “Ghorbani affair”—as the chattering class inside MI6 was already calling it—was a full-blown fiasco gathering steam. Most grievously embarrassing to the Service was the fact that they would have gone on being duped if the Americans hadn’t come to the rescue.

  “The irony is that even they wouldn’t have known anything had it not been for Greta—Sonia, whatever her bloody name is—exposing Ghorbani to the New Přemyslids.” Frank had offered this remark while again plundering the liquor cabinet and skewering young Bradford—who hovered just out of earshot—with a stare even Conor found hair-raising. “I was ready to drum her out of the service or hunt her down for a rogue, but now I suppose I shall have to pin a medal on her.”

  The source of his angst—and salvation—was a listening device the CIA had managed to plant in the Iranian Embassy in New York. A few days earlier it had captured a conversation between a junior officer and one of his colleagues, and after some bureaucratic throat-clearing the Americans had kindly passed it along to the British.

  The transcript detailed the officers discussing an agent in Prague who’d been posing as a double agent with MI6. The Iranians had intended to insert him as a sleeper agent by letting the British bring him over as a defector, but only days before departure he’d contacted Tehran with the news that his assumed status as a British agent had been blown, and he couldn’t be sure his deeper cover as a sleeper was intact. Iranian intelligence had pulled the plug on the operation, instructing the agent to lie low and wait for the travel documents he needed to return home.

  In a dispirited tone entirely out of character for him, Frank said he’d come with no expectation of capturing Ghorbani, who he assumed was safely back in Iran, but with the Prague station essentially leaderless and the foreign minister spitting nails it was important to at least seem to be doing something.

  “My sole consolation for being here is the opportunity to watch you in your glory at the Rudolfinum this Saturday.”

  “And see Maestro Eckhard in his,” Conor added. This brought a wan smile and a little color to Frank’s face.

  “That as well, of course.”

  Conor might be offering further consolation if it turned out Farid Ghorbani was hunkered down at the Hotel Imperial, but as he pumped the accelerator and raced over the bridge to the New Town he knew the only person he really cared about finding was Kate.

  At just after eleven o’clock, the night was still in its infancy as far as Prague was concerned. Coasting up Wenceslas Square, Conor saw it fill up with people, all of whom looked younger than him—and certainly quite a few who were drunker than him. The street called Krakovska ran in a perpendicular line from the southern end of the square, near the National Museum. The hotel was an ugly cement building with an off-centered front door, sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a jazz club. He parked and studied it from across the street, and seeing nothing remarkable, went into the garishly lit lobby.

  Bypassing the front desk and elevator, Conor bolted up the staircase to the third floor. He listened at the door of Room 347 and after a single rap, drew the Walther and stepped aside. He heard footsteps approach and stop, and after a long pause the handle slowly dipped without a sound. When a crack of light appeared in the frame Conor threw his full weight against the door, which gave way without much resistance. Once inside he kicked it shut, pinning the room’s occupant against the wall and fastening his hand around a spindly throat. Only then did he realize his gun was jammed against the ear of Winston O’Shea.

  “Winnie.” As soon as Conor stepped back the little man sagged against the wall like a rag doll, pale and bug-eyed. “What the hell are you doing in here? I swear to God, if I’ve raced all the way across town for—”

  “He’s got her in his room down the hall,” Winnie interrupted, “And he’s got a gun.”

  “Has he hurt her? Has he touched her at all?”

  Winnie flinched at Conor’s tone, quiet and lethal. “I don’t think so. I can’t quite tell, but it looks like he’s just put her on the floor in a corner.”

  “What do you mean ‘looks like’?” Conor demanded. “How can you tell?”

  Maneuvering cautiously around him, Winnie went to the desk and picked up a device that looked like a sawed off telescope, holding it up for inspection. “Peephole reverser. I booked this room as soon as they got here, and I’ve been sneaking down the hall to check on her every so often. I came away once to try finding you, but there’s a squad of coppers at your place and they didn’t want me hanging about. What’s going on?”

  “Plenty, but never mind about it. Let’s have it, then—your reversing yoke.” He plucked it away from Winnie and started for the door. “Which room?”

  With the small brushed steel cylinder gripped in his hand, Conor walked swiftly down the hall. Outside Room 338, he could hear voices, and though the conversation was inaudible they sounded calm. Small comfort, but he took what he could get.

  Carefully placing the device against the door’s peephole, he put his eye to the lens and peered into the room. The scene inside translated as a blurry, fish-eyed image, but he could see Ghorbani sitting with his left arm thrown over the back of a chair. The gun
in his right hand rested casually on the table next to him, pointed sideways into a corner across the room. Conor could just make out the shape of Kate on the floor next to the bed, but her head was bowed, her hair dropping down in a curtain that hid her face from him.

  Barely breathing, he considered his next move. His heart urged him to kick down the door and rescue her, but his head was telling him such macho heroics could get her killed. He needed to retreat and form a better plan, but after several minutes he still couldn’t bring himself to stop watching her and walk away. The decision was made for him when a loud metallic ding sounded from the elevator down the hall. Before an older couple stepped out into the hallway, he jumped away from the door and walked back to the room. Winnie—massaging his throat—answered his knock again.

  “Sorry for throttling you like that.” Conor settled glumly at the foot of the bed.

  Winnie joined him. “Understandable, given the circumstances. I expect I’d have done the same in your situation.”

  Conor shot a skeptical glance at his pint-sized companion but let the comment go unchallenged. “You’d better give me the story from the beginning.”

  He listened to the account of Winnie’s discovery of Ghorbani, raised an eyebrow at his confession about sneaking into the man’s hotel room, and stiffened at his description of the scene inside the restaurant. He could imagine Kate’s shock, since none of them had realized Martin and Ghorbani knew each other.

  “I was nervous about her going with him, but Kate didn’t think she’d be in any danger. I followed in the Hyundai and thought it would be all right when they headed for the hotel, but after pulling up in front of the door he peeled off again with her inside the bloody car, and I tailed them back here.” Winnie looked downcast. “Should have done more to keep her safe. I’m sorry.”

  “No apologies,” Conor said, and meant it. The man had shown more brains and ingenuity—and chutzpah—than he ever would have expected. “I’d have no idea where she’d gone to if it weren’t for you. I’m grateful.”

  Winnie brightened a little and nodded proudly at the cylinder he was still fretfully rolling between his fingers. “It’s a top brand—made by the Germans. I threw down fifty quid for it, but it’s paid off handsome, hasn’t it?” He frowned. “I’m afraid I’ve mislaid the receipt in all the excitement.”

  “I’m good for it. Add it to the list.” Conor turned as another thought occurred to him. He narrowed his eyes and Winnie began to look nervous. “I suppose you bought it to use on Kate and I, though. Did you, those first few days when we were still at the hotel?”

  “Should have done, if I was going about the job properly, but I couldn’t do it.” The corners of his mouth dipped low and Winnie’s chin crumpled into a landscape of dents and wrinkles. “I saw the whole thing was rubbish from the start. Most freeloaders give themselves away, if you pay attention. When they get a minute with nobody watching, their faces take a break and you see what they really look like. Mate of mine taught me how to notice when that happens. Sometimes they just look bored—sick of the game and what they’re puttin’ up with—but some, as soon as the other one’s back is turned, you see the greed, and how they just want to get the goods and run off with them. Those are the worst, because they’re maybe not just spongers. They could be thieves, or even killers. So, I watched you, waited to see how you’d look when Kate wasn’t paying attention.”

  In spite of his frantic state of mind, Conor found himself drawn in by Winnie’s method of profiling and was curious to know his conclusions. “Go on, so. What did you see when my face took a break?”

  Winnie gave him a smile of sympathy. “Christ, mate. I saw the only thing you’re hiding from her is you love her twice as much as she thinks, and you’re afraid it’s still not enough. How’s that then? Am I close?”

  “You are. Pretty close, yeah.” Conor’s throat tightened, and it was another minute before he could speak again. He scrubbed a hand over his face and stood up. “I suppose I’d better call Frank.”

  “Are we going to sit like this all night?”

  “You should be more grateful. If I become sleepy, I will be tying you to this radiator.”

  “Well, I’m freezing,” Kate said. “You can tie me to it now if you’d only turn it on.”

  Ghorbani’s nostrils flared in an arrogant sniff. “The temperature is fine. You are cold from shock, and the fear. It will pass.”

  She bristled at the man’s smug confidence. Of course she was frightened, there was no denying that. As he’d sped away from the hotel she hadn’t looked back—hadn’t dared to even peek in the side-view mirror—afraid of casting any suspicion on her story that she’d been caught out in the rain alone. Still, she’d tried to believe Winnie was in his Hyundai somewhere behind them. He might not have seen the car pull away or maybe hadn’t understood what it meant, but surely he’d eventually realize something was wrong. A slender hope, but enough to give her the spirit to challenge Ghorbani’s power to terrify her.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m cold because my clothes are wet.”

  “Oh? Would you like me to help you out of them?”

  Kate bit back a retort, realizing how dangerous it would be to anger him. She also recognized her predicament had quickly moved beyond the limits of her training. The three weeks at Fort Monckton had felt like an eternity, but now they seemed pitifully inadequate and she doubted any amount of training could overcome the problem of a gun pointed at her chest from ten feet away. She’d been taught how to disarm an enemy, but her instructor had also cautioned it was a bad idea to try it. He’d concentrated on teaching her how to avoid being disarmed herself.

  “Don’t worry.” Ghorbani was sneering at her now. “I’m not going to touch you. I’ve had enough of women like you.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Yes, it’s a good question. I’m thinking about this. You are a problem I did not expect.”

  He was watching Kate as though she were an interesting species of wildlife he’d pinned into a corner, and in fact she did feel a bit like a cowering animal—a wet and shivering one. Having discarded her rain-soaked shoes, Kate tried to warm her bare feet by tucking them beneath her. She scraped her legs against the cheap, rough carpet in the process, stirring up the noxious odor of whatever chemical had been used to clean it. Her dress and hair were damp from the rain, her back against the wall was numb with cold, and she couldn’t keep her teeth from chattering, but her captor ignored her discomfort.

  “What about Sonia? What are you going to do with her?”

  “She is no problem. Not any longer.” He frowned. “Sonia. I don’t like this name. Greta suited her. I expect both are false. Everything was a lie.”

  “But you lied to her too.”

  “Yes. As our jobs required, but I would not have betrayed her, and I knew she was an MI6 agent.”

  “How did you find out about that?”

  He didn’t answer. Staring at Kate, he remained quiet for a moment, and then looked away. “I also knew she was a Jew. I loved her anyway, and kept that secret also. I’ve known Minister Labut for some time, and we told each other many things tonight.”

  “What about us?” Kate asked. “Did you tell Martin he had a houseful of MI6 agents?”

  “Of course not. I didn’t know the two of you were staying in that place, or that you even knew the Labuts.” His face soured. “Also I did not know, during these months and all the nights my Greta lay beside me, that she was his mistress and had borne him a son. Of all the things I told him, one enraged him most. More even than knowing his lover is a spy, he is nearly mad thinking his pure blood has mixed with hers to create a mongrel son. ‘My son no longer.’ This is what he said.” Ghorbani shrugged. “What I think is, he will no longer want the child in his house. What I know is, he no longer wants Sonia alive. This is very clear. She is a problem for him now, but not for him to fix. Not by his hands, and not in his house. He is a cowardly man. He wishes someone else to ma
ke it go away—tomorrow night. She will be going out, and he knows where she will be.”

  “The recital.” Kate clenched her teeth against another shiver. His casual, conversational tone horrified her as much as the words themselves. “How can you say you loved her?”

  “It is the past.” Ghorbani waved the gun, as though lazily swatting at a fly. “I was a fool, but I am not a fool any longer.”

  “No, now you’re going to become a murderer.” Closing her eyes, Kate rested her head against the wall. “That’s not progress, Farid.”

  24

  The hotel room wasn’t big enough for the range of movement he needed. Conor prowled it like a caged tiger, grinding a path into the carpet around the bed with his phone still clutched in his hand while Winnie watched from a safe distance.

  He should have trusted his intuition. It’s your pole star. He knew that line well enough by now; his mother started saying it before he was out of the cradle. If his pole star offered something clear enough to act on he generally obeyed it, but this time he hadn’t. When he’d reached for the phone to call Frank and felt a prickle of foreboding translate to a whisper—Don’t—he’d hesitated, but placed the call anyway. Now he was suffering the consequences of not trusting his own instincts, and of allowing himself to forget that Frank Emmons Murdoch would always be—first and foremost—a calculating intelligence officer. In any situation, he could dump his humanity into a six-foot grave and walk away without so much as a prayer over the remains. Of course he’d expressed genuine concern over Kate’s welfare, but it didn’t diminish his astonished delight at hearing Ghorbani was not only still in Prague but also conveniently positioned, oblivious to his imminent danger.

  After Conor had filled Frank in, he’d explained the course of action he intended to pursue. “We’ve the key to Ghorbani’s room. All we need is a tactic to get him out for a few minutes to give us access.”