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“Do me a favor,” he said to Murray. “Don’t pass this information along to Rodrigo Nervi.” He didn’t want that bunch getting in his way, plus he had a natural dislike of doing anything to help people like that. Circumstances might force the United States government to occasionally look the other way about the dirtier parts of the Nervi organization, but he didn’t have to help them out one bit.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Murray blandly. “What information?”
It would be, of course, just as much hassle getting back across the Channel as it had been getting to London. He couldn’t get off one plane and get right back on another the way she had done; oh, no, it was never that simple. She had planned ahead; he was scrambling around behind her, trying to find an available seat. She’d known exactly what would confuse and delay anyone tracking her, of course.
Still, it was discouraging to find out he had another long wait before the next flight with an empty seat.
Murray clapped him on the shoulder. “I know someone who can get you there much faster than that.”
“Thank God,” said Swain. “Bring him on.”
“You don’t mind flying backseat, do you? He’s a NATO pilot.”
“Holy shit,” Swain blurted. “You’re putting me in a fighter?”
“I did say ‘much faster,’ didn’t I?”
6
Lily let herself into the sublet apartment in Montmartre that she had rented several months ago, before she had assumed the Denise Morel identity. The apartment was tiny, really more a studio than a true apartment, but had its own minuscule bathroom. She had her own clothes here, plus privacy and relative safety. Because the sublet predated Denise’s appearance, no computer search was likely to go back far enough to put her on any sort of list, plus she had concocted yet another identity: Claudia Weber, a German national.
Because Claudia was a blonde, Lily had stopped at a hairdresser and had the artificial coloring removed from her hair. She would have bought the products and done it herself, but removing color was much more complicated than adding it and she was afraid she might do all sorts of damage to her hair. An inch had had to be trimmed as it was, to get rid of the dry ends after the bleaching process.
But when she looked in the mirror, she saw herself again, at last. The colored contact lenses were gone and her own pale blue eyes looked back at her. Her straight hair was once more wheat blond, reaching just to her shoulders. She could walk right past Rodrigo Nervi and he probably wouldn’t recognize her—she hoped, because she might be doing exactly that.
Wearily she set her bags on the neatly made fold-out bed, then tumbled down beside them. She knew she should check to make certain the apartment hadn’t been bugged, but she had been pushing herself relentlessly all day and she was shaking with fatigue. If she could sleep for just an hour, that would make a world of difference.
All in all, though, she was pleased with how her stamina had held out today. She was tired, yes, but not gasping for breath, as Dr. Giordano had warned she would be if that heart valve was severely damaged. Of course, she hadn’t been unduly exerting herself, either; she hadn’t been sprinting. So the jury was still out on the heart thing.
She closed her eyes and in the quiet concentrated on her heartbeat; it seemed normal to her. Thump-thump, thump-thump. With his stethoscope Dr. Giordano could hear a murmur, but she didn’t have a stethoscope and as far as she could tell the rhythm was completely normal. So maybe the damage was minimal, just enough to produce a faint murmur. She had other things to worry about.
She drifted into a half-doze in which her body relaxed while her mind began to circle around the situation, probing and rearranging facts as she knew them, trying to find answers to the unknown factors.
She didn’t know what Averill and Tina had stumbled across, or what they’d been told, but it was something they felt strongly enough about to bring them back into a business they’d abandoned. She didn’t even know who had hired them. Not the CIA, she was almost certain. Probably not MI-6 either. While they didn’t live in each other’s pockets, the two governments and agencies maintained a strong degree of cooperation between them, and in any case, there were plenty of active agents available to them, so there wouldn’t have been any need to bring in two inactive ones.
In fact, she didn’t think any government had hired them; instead, it looked like a private hire. Somewhere along the way—hell, all along the way—Salvatore Nervi had stepped on toes, bullied, brutalized, and killed. Finding his enemies wouldn’t be difficult; sorting them out could take a year or longer. But who had gone to the trouble of hiring two professionals, albeit retired ones, to hit back? Moreover, who had known about her friends’ backgrounds? Averill and Tina had lived ordinary lives, had gone out of their way to provide that kind of life for Zia; they hadn’t exactly advertised their pasts.
But someone had known about them, known their capabilities. That suggested someone who had been in the business, too, she thought, or at least been in a position to know names. Whoever it was had also known not to approach an active contract agent, not to bring attention to himself or herself in that manner. Instead the unknown someone had picked Averill and Tina because . . . why? Why them? And with Zia to consider, why had they accepted?
Her friends had been young enough to still be in good physical shape—that was one possible reason for their selection that came to mind. They had also been skilled at what they did, coolheaded, experienced. She could see why they had been tapped, but what had swayed them to get involved? Money? They had been doing okay, not rich but not hurting for cash, either. A truly astronomical amount could have swayed them, but over the years they’d developed the same casual attitude about money that she had. From the time she’d begun her career, money had always been there. She didn’t worry about it, and neither had Averill and Tina. She knew for a fact that between them the two agents had salted away enough cash to live in relative comfort for the rest of their lives, plus Averill had been doing okay for himself with a computer-repair shop.
She wished one of them had picked up the telephone and called her, told her what they were considering. Their motivation had to have been strong and she wanted to know what it was, because then she’d know how to attack. Her revenge wasn’t complete just because Salvatore was dead; he was just the first act. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she found out what was bad enough that her friends had become involved, something that would make the entire world turn against the Nervi organization, and even the people in power who had been in Salvatore’s pocket would rush to distance themselves. She wanted to bring down the entire rotten deck of cards.
She had the fleeting thought that if Tina had told her about the job they were taking, if it had been something important enough to bring them out of retirement, she might well have joined them. She might have made the difference between success and failure—or she herself might be dead alongside them.
But they hadn’t mentioned a thing, even though she’d had dinner with them not a week before their murders. She had been going out of town on a job that would take a few days or a little longer, yes, but she’d told them when she expected to be back. Had they already known then, or had this job offer come out of the blue and needed doing immediately? Averill and Tina didn’t operate that way. Neither did she. Anything involving the Nervi organization required study and preparation, because the layers of security were so dense.
None of this was anything she hadn’t mentally gone over and over during many sleepless nights since they had been killed. Sometimes, when Zia’s cheerful little face formed in her mind’s eye, she wept with a violence that frightened her. In her grief she’d needed to strike back immediately, to cut off the head of the snake. She’d done that, focusing on not
hing else for three months, and now she would concentrate on the rest of it.
First, she needed to find out who had hired Averill and Tina. A private hire meant someone with money . . . or maybe not. Maybe the need had been the motivating factor. Maybe this person had come to them with proof of something particularly nasty in which Salvatore was involved. With Salvatore, that could be anything; she couldn’t imagine anything so low and dirty that he would balk at it. His only requirement had been that he make money.
But Averill and Tina had both retained an idealistic core, and she could see them being so alarmed at something that they were moved to action, even though in their former occupations they’d seen so much that it was difficult to shock them. What could that have been?
Zia. Something that threatened Zia. To protect her, they would have fought tigers bare-handed. Anything involving her would explain both their urgency and their motivation.
Lily sat up, blinking. Of course. Why hadn’t she seen it before? If it wasn’t money that drew them back in, then what else had been important to them? Their marriage, their love for each other, Lily herself . . . but most of all, Zia.
