AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His old uncle coughs and clears his throat. “Sure. She’s a handful, but she keeps me moving. You coming with her?”
“No,” Tom says.
Chapter66
I SLIDEaway from Terminal Three at Heathrow and climb into the red van letteredEXPRESS LONDON DISPATCH.
Felicity is sitting in her chair, pointing a pistol in my direction.
She shrugs, lowers it. “Suspicious sort,” she says. “Sorry. When you can’t move around well, you tend to get paranoid about being stuck in one place.”
I settle down in the second chair in the rear and get a better view of her lower legs. She notes my gaze and I say, “Iraq? Or Afghanistan?”
“Neither,” Felicity says. “Tavistock Square, about 25 kilometers from here.”
It comes to me almost like a slap to the face.
“The July 7 London bombings,” I say. “You were in the double-decker bus?”
Felicity looks pleased that I know the reference. “That’s right. The blast took off both of my legs, sent shrapnel through the rest of my body. More than fifty were killed, about 700 injured…and it’s discussed in historic terms, like the Coventry bombing in 1941. It’s all forgotten…but I don’t forget. Can’t, actually. I had been planning a boring career in the civil service. But plans change.”
I say, “Rashad’s not in there.”
“I figured as much, with the tracking chip staying in one place after you lot raced in. Did he dig it out of his wrist himself?”
“Yes,” I say. “Tricky son of a bitch, isn’t he?”
Felicity says, “Oh, but he has a weakness. And it’s the same as what he regards as his strength—his determination and focus—such that he’ll plan the deaths of thousands while taking a knife to his own skin to dig out that tracker. That sense of superiority can lead to overconfidence.”
More horns and honks, the high-low sirens of additional police vehicles roaring in. “You said earlier that you had spotted him in Paris, then on a section of…”
“Uxbridge Road,” she says, returning to the video screen. “I managed to narrow it down to either a fish-and-chips takeaway or a function hall owned by a local charity, the White City Relief Association.”
“Wait,” I say, something coming to me. “That function hall. What was there tonight?”
Back to her keyboard and screen, and in just a few moments Felicity says, “A historical society.”
“What group?”
“The…Queen Elizabeth II Railroad Society.”
Railroad.
Yes!
“Felicity, can you locate Jeremy and Winnie? We need to get going. Now!”
And then I look and—
No keys in the ignition.
Damn it!
A soft tinkle. I turn. Felicity is dangling a set of keys in her hand.
Chapter67
RACING EASTalong the M4, heading back to London, I recall the power of my first driving lessons back in Maine. The worst part of driving this van is its gearshift, and using it with my left hand; but I wasn’t intending on going into reverse anytime soon.
