Carl took the bear from Eva’s nightstand, put it in with his clothes, and walked through to the bathroom.
“I wonder how they found Farooq,” he said as Eva emptied the medicine cabinet. “He spends a lot of time on his computer. Maybe he got sloppy at some point.”
She looked at him and shrugged. “I’d expect that of the others, but not Farooq. My guess would be that the identities Russell gave us are compromised. Maybe the ESO has someone in his office that he doesn’t know about.”
“Then we should tell the others to do what we did and use the passports you got from DeBron.”
“First, we need to find out which ID they’ve been using. If they’re using the one Russell gave them, they could be in danger. Farooq will have to keep traveling under the name he’s using now. They’ll be following him, and if he switches to the other ID, that’ll be burned too.”
“So where do you want to rendezvous?”
“With Farooq? Lyon. We can drive there in about eight hours. Once we set off, I’ll let the others know where to meet us and book them rooms on Airbnb.”
With their bags packed, Carl left the apartment first, and Eva locked the door behind them. She put the key through the letterbox. Downstairs, they got into the BMW they’d rented and Carl set the satnav for their destination, while Eva arranged their accommodation and alerted the others to the imminent danger.
CHAPTER 3
Eva’s response came back within a minute, but it seemed like hours.
Which ID are you using?
Farooq’s fingers worked on auto, and he sent the short reply.
The one POTUS gave me.
A moment later, Shield beeped once more.
Fly to Lyon NOW. Address to follow. USE POTUS ID ONLY!
Farooq was still in the grip of panic. The video had shaken him, and now he faced the prospect of traveling thousands of miles alone, without Eva to protect him. He wasn’t built for fighting and had always found confrontation difficult at best. The prospect of navigating his way to France with killers on his trail was enough to turn the knot in his stomach to pure acid. He had no weapons and no idea what the opposition looked like. They could be waiting outside at this very moment . . .
Fly to Lyon NOW.
Farooq’s analytical brain kicked in. He set the scrub program on his two computers and went to get ready for his trip. He fetched a bag from his bedroom and put his laptop inside, then took the cash he had in his safe and counted it. Nine thousand US, give or take. He threw a few clothes in for good measure. He left a short note to the staff and a couple of hundred dollars’ severance pay.
Farooq took the stairs to the street two at a time. Outside, he hailed a tuk-tuk and tossed his bag into the back.
“Take me to the Park Hyatt.”
Farooq scanned his surroundings, looking for any sign of a tail, but with so much traffic on the streets it was impossible to tell if someone was following him. By the time he reached the hotel, he still had no idea if the killers were on to him. He paid the driver, then went straight to the taxi rank and got in the first cab.
“The airport.”
Farooq turned so that he could see out of the rear window. The driver tried to engage him in conversation but gave up when he got no response.
It was a long journey, stop-start all the way as the taxi fought against the tide of vehicles. Twice they had to navigate around crashed cars, but eventually they made it to the airport.
Farooq paid the driver and carried his bag to the Emirates desk, where he booked the next flight to Lyon via Dubai. He had four nervous hours to wait, and the temptation to hit the bar was almost too much.
Just one quick shot to calm the nerves.
He shook the thought away. One would lead to many, as it had in the past, and he needed his wits about him. Instead, he found a quiet corner and watched the other passengers going about their business, trying to spot anyone who looked out of the ordinary. The trouble was, everyone looked suspicious. The man pushing the cleaning trolley caught his eye for a moment, and Farooq almost soiled himself when the man reached into the cart, only to then pull out a rag and start wiping down a handrail.
Pull yourself together.
Waiting and watching was increasing his panic levels, so Farooq went in search of food. He found a café and ordered coffee and a sandwich, paying an exorbitant price for the substandard fare.
As he ate, he tried to think what might have tipped off the ESO. It couldn’t have been his online activity. In that respect, he was extremely careful and could cover his tracks better than anyone. Likewise, his phone. It was a prepaid unregistered cell, and only a couple of people had the number. Could they have found a match to his voice while he’d been on a call to Samar? It was a possibility, but the most likely scenario was that someone knew about the new identities President Russell had given them. Whatever the reason, he would have to be extra careful from now on.
After eating, Farooq wandered the departure hall, once more seeking his tail, but it appeared he’d made it to the airport without attracting unwanted attention. He began to relax, a little.
Shortly after seven in the evening, the baggage check-in desk opened. Farooq collected his boarding pass and passed through security, then spent half an hour in the duty-free shop before proceeding to his gate.
As he sat scanning the faces, none looked familiar. He hadn’t seen any of them hanging around him earlier, and he finally felt safe. No one would have the audacity to try to kill him in the airport, not even the ESO.
His section was eventually called, and he carried his hand luggage on to the plane and found his seat. Ahead of him lay a four-hour flight, followed by a short stopover and another seven hours to Lyon. With a little time before takeoff, Farooq composed a new message for Eva, giving her his ETA in France.
He hoped that when he got there Eva would have a plan.
CHAPTER 4
“. . . the cross comes in, and there’s Jones with a brilliant header! Two-nil United, and three points in the bag.”
“I’ll say one thing for the British, they sure can play soccer.”
Rees Colback raised his glass in agreement. Not that he’d been paying much attention to the game. He was there solely for the beer, but once the big Texan had heard a fellow American speak, it was like they were best buds for life.
Note to self: find a new drinking hole tomorrow.
That was one of the good things about Gran Canaria—there were bars everywhere.
“About time I was heading home, Hank. The little lady’s waiting on me for dinner. Catch you next time.”
Hank did his best to convince him to stay for just one more, but Colback was insistent. He drained his glass, then slapped his compatriot on the back and left the bar.
In truth, he didn’t much feel like going home.
Colback strolled along the second-floor walkway, ignoring the restaurant staff trying to coax him into their establishments. He found the bar he was looking for and ordered his fourth beer of the evening.
The “little lady” was actually his sister, and her constant complaining about his daily drinking had begun to grate on his nerves. But what else was there to do? He ran five miles each morning and swam fifty lengths of the pool every afternoon, but apart from that, he’d found little to occupy his time. He’d seen the whole island during his ten weeks here, and it wasn’t as if he had friends he could socialize with. Eva had been clear on that point: avoid forming bonds with people. You begin to trust them, and one slip could be your undoing.
It wasn’t much of a way to spend the rest of his days. He had millions in the bank, but Eva had been clear when she’d transferred the money: Don’t splurge on fast cars and fancy houses. This money is to last you the rest of your life.
Some life. I might as well be back in that prison cell.
Colback put the empty bottle on the table and headed home. It wasn’t far to the apartment he shared with Kayla, but he was in no hurry to face her, so he took his t
ime and made the most of the deliciously warm evening.
Kayla had come with him to the Canary Islands reluctantly. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d managed to convince her that the ESO might try to use her to get to him, and that her life could be in danger, no matter what steps the president took. He’d tried convincing his parents, too, but they were adamant about not abandoning their Florida home. When Kayla grudgingly agreed to move to Gran Canaria with him, he’d paid another visit to DeBron Harris to secure new papers for her. She’d given up her life as a nurse to join him in the Spanish archipelago, but it was only once they’d landed at Las Palmas that she’d found out that the new life came with strings attached. She, too, was struggling with the reclusive lifestyle; what had until recently been a close brother-sister relationship was becoming increasingly fractured by the day.
When he reached home, he found Kayla sitting on the couch wearing shorts and a bikini top, sipping a lemonade. She looked disgruntled, much like every other day.
“You got a message,” she said, her eyes never leaving the television.
Colback habitually left his phone at home these days. The only person likely to call was his sister; it wasn’t as if he had friends to chat with.
He picked the cell up from the dining table and saw the Shield notification. His hands trembled as he opened it.
Which ID are you using?
The message was a few hours old. He sent her a response, and wasn’t surprised to get a reply seconds later.
Fly to Paris NOW. Address to follow. Use DEBRON ID ONLY!
Colback was already using the passport he’d purchased from DeBron Harris, having decided to keep the one from the US president as a backup. Did Eva’s message mean someone had managed to get wind of the other one? If they had, it was now worthless.
Of more concern was Eva’s urgency. She was not given to histrionics, so there had to be a damn good reason for telling him to get on a plane right away.
“Kayla, we have to leave.”
“I don’t feel like going out. Haven’t you had enough already?”
“I don’t mean leave the house, I mean leave Gran Canaria. Tonight.”
Kayla put her glass on the coffee table and stood, facing him. “What have you done now?”
“Nothing,” Colback replied. He walked into the bedroom and began putting clothes into a bag. “Eva said we have to move, so we’re moving.”
“But where?”
“Paris. France.”
Kayla crossed her arms and stood in the doorway. “Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
“No, because I have no idea myself. She told me to get on a plane and she’ll send the rendezvous address later.”
Kayla turned and stomped back into the living room. “Well, I’m not going,” she said.
Colback sighed. For a twenty-six-year-old, his sister could play the role of a teenager to perfection. He followed her into the main room and turned her to face him.
“Look, I’m sorry, but if Eva felt the need to contact me, it must be serious.”
“I don’t care. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life running like some criminal. I haven’t done anything wrong!”
“I know you haven’t, but it’s not safe here now.”
“Did she say that? Did she say we’re in danger?”
“No,” Colback admitted, “she didn’t. She said to get to Paris as fast as I can and only use the passport I bought in Louisville.”
“There you go. If those passports are okay, I can keep using mine here.”
It was a fair point. If Eva thought the papers were still secure, surely she wouldn’t have told him to use them. That aside, he still didn’t like the idea of leaving his sister behind. Not until he knew what the emergency was.
“Okay, we’ll compromise. I’ll go to Paris and see what the problem is. If Eva thinks it’s safe to leave you here, great. Otherwise, I’ll send for you. I’ll have a letter sent to the Ocean Beach Club on Playa del Cura with your name on it. Go there every day after five, have the all-you-can-eat buffet, then ask if you have any messages. Try not to ask the same staff member twice. Is that good enough?”
Kayla pouted, then her arms loosened and fell by her side. “Fine.”
“Good. Before I go, I’m going to give you some ground rules.”
“No friends, no socializing, no leaving the house, no breathing—”
“Hey! I’m being serious. If you don’t do as I say, it could get you killed.”
His outburst did the trick. The attitude was suddenly gone, and his mature sibling stood in front of him once more.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t like this situation.”
“Me either. Now, while I pack, I need you to look up flights to Paris.”
“Storms battered the coast as Jake Strong pulled his sea canoe out into the dark water. The swell of the sea threatened to tear it from his grasp, but he kept it steady before climbing awkwardly aboard. Fires raged behind him, and he could still hear gunfire as the enemy fighters shot at unseen targets. He unclipped the paddle and began rowing into the darkness, feeling . . .”
Feeling what?
Len Smart got up from his desk and went to make yet another cup of coffee.
When reading novels—and Len was an avid fan of fiction—he found the words flowed from the page. As a writer, it wasn’t quite the same. Any dreams of having his first book finished by the spring were fast evaporating. He’d been hard at it for seven weeks now and had barely reached five thousand words. How people managed to churn out five or six books a year, he had no idea.
Perhaps it was time to consider plotting it out first. He’d read about authors known as “pantsters,” who began typing on a blank page and went from there; while others had to outline the entire story ahead of time to the nth degree before they even considered starting to write. Len was using the first method, and it wasn’t going well.
Still, there wasn’t much else to occupy his time.
His job at Tom Gray’s firm Minotaur Solutions was history, and not just because of his run-in with the ESO. It had been a financial basket case for some time now, as competitors squeezed the market for every dime. The decision had finally been made to wind it up, and not a moment too soon. Gray had managed to walk away with a healthy amount in the bank, and Len had declined any suggestion of severance pay.
With the two million he’d been given by Eva Driscoll, he didn’t need it.
What he did need was to finish this chapter and then decide what Jake Strong was going to do next.
He sat back down at the computer and reread the last couple of paragraphs, making changes as he went, then returned to the struggle of adding more words.
Feeling . . .
The cell phone on his desk vibrated, and he picked it up to see a message had been sent to him.
Eva Driscoll . . . Not a good sign.
He swiped the combination that unlocked the phone, then clicked on the notification. After answering that he was using the passport DeBron had made for him, he hit Send. A moment later, he received instructions to get to Geneva as soon as he could.
In a way, he’d half expected this day would come. From what he’d learned about the ESO during his stint with Eva, he knew that cutting and running wouldn’t be so simple. The ESO were the most serious of players. It had only been a matter of time before they found one of his group. Len was just surprised that it had taken this long.
“Sorry, Jake, but I’m gonna have to leave you freezing your arse off in the Atlantic, feeling . . . whatever.”
Len saved the document, closed it down, then emailed a copy to himself. A simplistic backup method, true, but it was one way of ensuring his work wasn’t lost if his laptop got lost, stolen, or damaged. He could easily replace the hardware, but not the time he’d invested in his novel. Now he could simply access his email account online and download a copy anywhere in the world.
Next, he booked a ticket to Geneva, for a flight leaving in a few hours’ tim
e, before throwing essentials into a small suitcase.
As he left the house in Calgary, his padded winter coat zipped up to protect him from the bitter cold, he was glad he’d decided to rent a car rather than rely on public transport. His place was at least two miles from the nearest shop—an easy jog at any time, but to get to the heart of the city would be a nightmare on foot or even by bus in these icy conditions. He would hand the Ford back in at the airport before his flight across the Atlantic.
Jubilant!
That was it: “. . . feeling jubilant after another successful mission, though he wasn’t home yet.”
Len rummaged around in the glove box, but couldn’t find what he was looking for. “Never a pen and paper when you need one.”
Knowing he’d forget before he had a chance to update his manuscript, he started the engine and set off on his own adventure.
DeBron’s.
Simon “Sonny” Baines hit Send, then waited for Eva to get back to him. When she did, he punched the air as he read her reply through the Shield application.
The last two and a half months had been almost intolerable: as bad as his spell in prison beforehand.
Many people would kill for a ton of money and never to have to work another day in their lives, but for Sonny it felt more like a punishment. He’d made the most of his new life soon after reaching Milan, eating out every lunchtime and evening, but the novelty had soon worn off. Even the thought of sipping beer in a bar full of beautiful women had lost its appeal.
Sonny’s trouble was that he was a talkative drunk, and he knew it. His fondest memories were of reminiscing with the guys about battles ancient and recent, everyone boasting of their exploits. Now he’d been reduced to chit-chat with strangers, unable to tell them what was really going on in his head. Until after a few beers . . .
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