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Frank handed the report over the desk. Swain took it and swiftly read through it, then passed it back. “The deed’s done. What’s there to stop?”
“Salvatore Nervi wasn’t alone in the situation that ended with the death of Lily’s friends. If she’s on a rampage to get all of them, she could wreck our entire network. She’s already done considerable damage by eliminating Nervi.”
Swain screwed up his face and briskly rubbed both hands over it. “Don’t you have some irrascible rogue agent, forcibly retired under a cloud, with some special skill that makes him the only choice possible for locating Ms. Mansfield and stopping her killing ways?”
Frank bit the inside of his cheek to control a smile. “Does this look like a movie production to you?”
“A man can hope.”
“Consider your hopes dashed.”
“Okay, then, how about John Medina?” Swain’s blue eyes were full of laughter as he got into the spirit of deviling Frank.
“John’s busy in the Middle East,” Frank said calmly.
His reply brought Swain upright in his seat, all hint of laziness gone. “Wait a minute. Are you saying there really is a Medina?”
“There really is a Medina.”
“There’s no file on him—” Swain began, then caught himself, grinned, and said, “Oops.”
“Meaning you’ve checked.”
“Hell, everyone in the business has checked.”
“That’s why there’s no file in the computer system. For his protection. Now, as I was saying, John’s deep cover in the Middle East, and in any case, I wouldn’t use him for a retrieval.”
“Meaning he’s way more important than I am.” Swain had that goofy grin again, meaning he took no offense.
“Or that he has different talents. You’re the man I want, and you’ll be on a plane to Paris tonight. Here’s what I want you to do.”
4
After spending an entire day eating, resting, and doing light workouts to increase her stamina, Lily got up the morning of her departure feeling much better. She carefully packed her carry-on bag and shopping tote, making sure she was leaving nothing crucial behind. Most of her clothes were left hanging in the closet; the odd photographs of complete strangers that she had put in cheap frames and set around the flat, to give herself the appearance of a background, were left in place.
She didn’t strip the bed linens or wash the single bowl and spoon she’d used for breakfast, though she did take the precaution of thoroughly wiping the place down with oil-dissolving disinfectant, to destroy her fingerprints. That was something she’d been doing for nineteen years, and the habit was strongly ingrained. She had even wiped down her surroundings before leaving the Nervi compound, though she hadn’t been able to use a disinfectant. She had also always wiped her eating utensils and drinking glasses with a napkin before they were collected, and cleaned her hairbrush every morning, flushing the stray hairs that collected in the bristles.
She was uncomfortably aware she couldn’t do anything about the blood Dr. Giordano had drawn for analyzing, but DNA wasn’t used for identification the same way that fingerprints were; there was no extensive database. Her fingerprints were on file in Langley, but nowhere else; except for the occasional assassination, she’d been a model citizen. Even fingerprints were no good unless there was a file somewhere to match them to, and get a name. One slipup meant nothing. Two provided a means of identification. To the best of her ability, she tried never to provide even a starting point.
Probably Dr. Giordano would find it odd in the extreme if she called him and asked for the return of any leftover blood. If she were in California, now, she could claim she was a member of a weird religious cult and needed the blood, or even that she was a vampire, and probably get any remnants returned.
The ghoulish thought made her mouth curve into a wan smile, and she wished she could share that thought with Zia, who’d had a rich sense of the absurd. With Averill and Tina, and especially with Zia, she’d been able to relax and act silly occasionally, like a normal person. For someone in her line of work, relaxation was a luxury, and done only with others of her kind.
The faint smile faded. Their absence left such a huge void in her life that she didn’t think she’d ever be able to fill
it. Over the years her affection had been given to an ever-shrinking circle, until finally there had been just five people in it: her mother and sister—and she no longer dared visit them for fear of bringing the danger of her job to their doorsteps—and three friends.
Averill had once been her lover; for a very brief time they had staved off the loneliness together. Then they had drifted apart, and she met Tina during a job that required two agents. She had never bonded instantly with anyone before the way she had with Tina, as if they had been twins meeting for the first time. They had only to look at each other to know they were thinking the same things at the same times. They had the same sense of humor, the same silly dreams that someday, when they weren’t in this line of work any longer, they’d get married and own their own businesses—not necessarily in that order—and maybe even have a kid or two.
Someday had come for Tina when, like helium balloons floating around in a closed room, Averill eventually floated across her path. Lily and Tina might have had tons in common, but chemistry was one thing that was different; Averill took one look at slim, brunette Tina and fell in love, and the feeling was mutual. For a while, between jobs, they had bummed around together and generally had a blast. They were young and healthy and good at their jobs; admittedly, being assassins made them feel tough and invincible. They were professional enough not to swagger, but young enough to feel the rush.
Then Tina was shot, and reality crashed down on them. The job was deadly. The rush was no longer there. Their own mortality stared them in the face.
Averill and Tina reacted to it by getting married, as soon as Tina was well enough to walk down the aisle. They set up housekeeping together, first in a flat here in Paris, then they bought a small house on the outskirts. They began taking fewer and fewer jobs.
Lily usually came back to visit whenever she could, and one day she brought Zia with her. She’d found the baby, abandoned and starving to death, in Croatia, just after Croatia had declared its independence from Yugoslavia, when the Serb army was already decimating pockets of the new country in the beginning of the bitter war. No one Lily had asked seemed to have any knowledge of the baby’s mother, or none they’d admit to, and they had even less interest. It was either take the baby with her or know she was leaving it to die a miserable death.
Within two days she loved the infant as fiercely as if she’d given birth to it herself. Getting out of Croatia hadn’t been exactly easy, especially since she was lugging a baby. She’d had to find milk, and diapers, and blankets. She hadn’t worried about clothes at that point, just some means, any means, of keeping the baby fed and dry and warm. She named her Zia, just because she liked the name.
