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He glanced up occasionally, a precaution against getting carsick, but for the most part he was oblivious of the thick traffic as people in the hundreds of thousands poured into the capital for the day’s work.
They were in an intersection, in the right lane of two turn lanes making a left turn on a green arrow, hemmed in by vehicles directly ahead, behind, and to the left, when a screech of brakes to his right made him lift his head and search out the sound. Frank saw a white-paneled florist delivery truck barreling through the intersection, ignoring the double lanes of traffic turning left, with the flashing lights of a police car directly behind him. The grill of the truck loomed in his vision, heading directly toward him. He heard Keenan say, “Shit!” as he fought the wheel to angle the car to the left, into the line of traffic beside them. Then there was a bone-jarring crash, as if he’d been picked up and flung to the ground by a giant, his entire body assaulted all at once.
Keenan regained consciousness with the taste of blood in his mouth. Smoke seemed to fill the car, and what looked like an enormous condom spilled profanely from the steering wheel. There was a buzzing in his head, and every movement was such an effort that he couldn’t lift his head off his chest. He stared at the huge condom, wondering what in hell it was doing there. An irritating blare was sounding in his left ear, making his head feel as if it might explode, and there was some other noise that sounded like shouting.
For what seemed like forever Keenan stared blankly at the steering-wheel condom, though it was only a few moments. Awareness seeped back into him, and he realized that the condom was an air bag and the “smoke” was powder from the bag.
With an almost audible pop, reality snapped back into place.
The car was in the middle of a tangle of metal. To his left were two other cars, steam rising from the broken radiator of one. A panel truck of some kind was squashed against the right side. He remembered trying to turn the car so they wouldn’t be T-boned, then an impact harder than anything he’d ever imagined. The truck had been aimed right at Mr. Vinay’s passenger door—
Oh, my God.
“Mr. Vinay,” he croaked, the sound nothing like his own voice. He turned his head and stared at the director of operations. The entire right side of the car was smashed in, and Mr. Vinay lay in an impossible tangle of metal, seat, and man.
Someone finally silenced the maddening car horn, and in the sudden relative quiet he could hear a distant siren.
“Help!” he yelled, though again it was nothing more than a croak. He spat blood out of his mouth, drew a deep breath that hurt like hell, and tried again. “Help!”
“Just hold on, buddy,” someone called. A uniformed officer climbed over the hood of one of the vehicles on the left, but the two were so crunched together that he couldn’t get between them. Instead he got on his hands and knees on the hood and peered at Keenan’s face. “Help’s on the way, buddy. Are you hurt bad?”
“I need a phone,” Keenan gasped, realizing the cop couldn’t see their license plates. His cell phone was somewhere in the wreckage.
“Don’t worry about making any calls—”
“I need a damn phone!” Keenan repeated, his tone fierce. He fought for another breath. CIA people never identified themselves as working for the CIA, but this was an emergency. “The man beside me is the director of operations—”
He didn’t need to say more. The cop had worked in the capitol area a long time, and he didn’t ask, “What kind of operations?” Instead he whipped out his radio and barked a few terse words into it, then turned around and yelled, “Anyone have a cell phone?”
Silly question. Everyone did. In just a moment the cop was stretching out on the hood to hand Keenan a tiny flip-phone. Keenan reached out a shaky, bloodstained hand and took the phone. He punched in a few numbers, realized this wasn’t a secure phone, then mentally said, “Shit,” and punched the rest of them.
“Sir,” he said, fighting back the black edges of unconsciousness. He still had a job to do. “This is Keenan. The director and I have been in an accident and the director is severely injured. We’re at . . .” His voice trailed off. He had no idea where they were. He held the phone out to the cop. “Tell him where we are,” he said, and closed his eyes.
16
Even though her regular contacts were out of the question, over the years Lily had met a number of people of questionable character with unquestionable skills who, for the right amount of money, would dig up dirt on their mothers. She still had some money left but not a huge amount, so she hoped that “right” translated to “reasonable.”
If Swain checked out okay, that would help her financial situation, because he’d volunteered to work with her. If she had to hire someone, that would put a serious dent in her bank account. Of course, she had to remember that Swain had admitted he wasn’t an expert at security systems, but he said that he knew people who were. The big question was, would those people want to be paid? If they did, then she’d be better off hiring someone from the beginning, rather than wasting money having Swain investigated.
Unfortunately, that was something she wouldn’t know until it was too late to do anything about it. She wanted Swain to check out okay. She wanted to find out he hadn’t escaped from a psychiatric ward somewhere or, even more important, he hadn’t been hired by the CIA.
It was as she was going to an Internet café that she realized she’d mad
e a tactical error in walking away from Swain the day before. If the CIA had hired him, Swain had now had the opportunity to call and have his file sanitized to fit whatever story he told. No matter what she or anyone else was able to find out about him, she couldn’t be certain the information was correct.
She stopped dead in her tracks. A woman bumped into her from behind and gave her a nasty look for stopping so abruptly. “Excusez-moi,” Lily said, detouring to a small bench so she could sit while she thought this out.
Damn it, there was so much about spy craft that she didn’t know; she was at a huge disadvantage here. There was now no point in investigating Swain; he either was or wasn’t CIA. She simply had to make up her mind to contact him or not.
The safest thing to do was not call him. He didn’t know where she lived, didn’t know what name she was using. But if he was CIA, then he had somehow figured out that she’d be after the Nervi laboratory complex and he had staked it out, waiting for her to appear. Either she abandoned her plan completely, or he’d eventually find her there again.
As far as the laboratory went, the circumstances there had become enormously complicated. Rodrigo had obviously found out who she really was and somehow gotten a photo of her sans disguise, otherwise the soccer players wouldn’t have recognized her so readily. The little fracas at the park would put him on double alert, and security at the complex had undoubtedly been doubled.
She needed help. There was no way now she could accomplish anything on her own. The way she saw it, she could either walk away and let Rodrigo Nervi continue to flourish, without making any more effort to find out what had been so important to Averill and Tina that it had cost them their lives, or she could cross her fingers for luck and accept Swain’s aid.
She wanted him to be on the level, she realized with a jolt. He seemed to get so much enjoyment out of life, and joy had been in short supply in her life for several long months. He’d made her laugh. He might not realize how long it had been since that had happened, but she did. The tiny human spark in her that grief hadn’t extinguished wanted to laugh again. She wanted to be happy again, and Swain radiated happiness like the sun. Okay, so he might be certifiable, but the hint of steel he’d shown when he stopped her from getting his weapon reassured her. If he could make her laugh, if she could find joy again, perhaps that alone was worth the risk of taking him as a partner.
There was also an element of physical attraction. That aspect took her a little by surprise, but she recognized the little flare of interest for what it was. She had to factor that into any decision she made concerning him, not let it cloud her mind. But did it make any difference if she wanted to accept his offer of help because he made her laugh or because she found him attractive? The fact was, the emotional need was greater than the physical. Besides, she doubted she would act on the physical attraction. She hadn’t had many lovers in her life, going through long periods of abstinence and not minding at all. Her last lover, Dmitri, had tried to kill her. That had been six years ago, and since then, trust had been a real issue for her.
