by Zoe Sharp
“It would bloody need to be. Must be a bit like making a living putting your head in a man-eating lion’s mouth every night of the week, and two matinee performances on Saturday.”
“Exactly. So, when Clay was killed, at first we thought he’d fallen foul of his masters. A reasonable assumption—these are not people you wanna get on the wrong side of. Then, of course, we found out about Sean Meyer—and, through him, you—and that put a whole different spin on what was done to Clay, and perhaps why.”
“Not by Sean, and not on my behalf, I can assure you,” I said quickly. “He might have tracked down Clay, but I’m convinced now he didn’t kill him. He didn’t know enough of the details.”
Hamilton stared at me. “You found him?” she demanded. “Already?”
I hid a smile at her obvious consternation. “I wasn’t sure how much time I might have before you caught up with me, so . . . yes, I’ve seen Sean and spoken with him.”
“Dammit. I was right—I should have hired you when I had the chance. Where is he now?”
“That one’s not quite so easy to answer. We didn’t exactly part friends.” I sighed, wondering where to begin. “There was this body, although I’m pretty sure Sean didn’t kill him, either—”
“OK, hold it right there.” Hamilton held up one hand, palm outward, rubbing the other wearily across her eyes. “I think you better start at the beginning.” She rose, moved to the hotel phone on the bedside table. “But first I’m going to order up more coffee—and not in goddamn dollhouse-size amounts this time.”
FORTY-SEVEN
BY THE TIME I’D GIVEN HAMILTON A REPORT ON MY ACTIVITIES SINCE arriving in Jordan, we’d got through another two trays of coffee and my brain was reeling from caffeine overdose.
I told her everything, more or less. Holding back didn’t seem likely to gain me much, and if I could get her looking into who else might have gone after Clay—not to mention using her greater resources to search for the Russians—it all helped take the heat off Sean.
As soon as I’d told her about Docksy’s body, she called in Woźniak from lurking in the corridor and sent him off on the trail of the ex-Spetsnaz guys. He seemed glad to have something active to do. I had a mental image of her shouting, “Fetch!” and him lolloping away with his ears flying and his tongue hanging out.
Then I remembered Moe and the image faded.
Hamilton nodded to the documents I’d piled up on the pillow. “I’m guessing these are the papers you took from the safe at this guy Hackett’s place?”
“Technically, they were already out of the safe by the time I arrived.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Tell that to the judge.”
I handed them across and she put on the same heavy-rimmed reading glasses she’d worn in Karbala. Initially, she looked as nonplussed by the content as I had.
“Did Meyer say if the safe was locked or open when he got there?”
I shook my head. “It didn’t come up. Why?”
“Just wondering if these were left by accident or design,” she murmured. She began to sort the papers into two piles.
It only took a glance to realize she was separating out the shipping manifests.
“Parker suggested that if Hackett and Clay were still pally after the army, they might have been in business together now,” I said. “And if Clay was smuggling, and Hackett is in international shipping . . .”
“Uh-huh, and if the stakes are as high as we know they are, and the risks are as great, then if Hackett thought he was in danger, would he be the kind of guy who might decide this Docksy was a loose end he couldn’t afford to leave behind before he ran?”
That threw me. It took a moment to realize I had my mouth open. I shut it again quickly. “Wow. I was thinking along the lines of Docksy being killed in error, because someone mistook him for Hackett,” I said. “I confess it didn’t cross my mind he might have been killed by him.”
“Ah, well, you spend a coupla decades in my line of work, you kinda get into the habit of thinking the worst of everyone. Occupational hazard.”
“And to answer your question—yes, he was absolutely that kind of slimy bastard.”
“Question is, where would he run to?”
“Parker reckoned the company Hackett was running in Madaba was little more than a front. His people are going through Hackett’s financials, so they might uncover another property—something he might use as a safe house.” I gestured to the papers she’d culled from the rest. “Anything useful in those?”
She shrugged, pushing back the sleeves of her fine-knit polo neck as if about to get her hands dirty. “If he lit out in enough of a hurry to have left these behind without checking them too closely, then yeah.”
“But if he had more time, and took anything sensitive with him, then what we have here is worthless,” I concluded.
She pulled a face and nodded.
“Still, there’s something I’d like to check out . . .” She picked up her phone, speed-dialed a number, and, while it connected, showed me the sheet she was interested in. It was a manifest for a container ship called the Dolphin, which seemed like the kind of name you’d give a sailing dinghy or a rowboat rather than a however-many-thousand-ton cargo vessel. It had sailed from the port of Aqaba, at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba, yesterday morning—just about the time I was watching Docksy arrive for his last ever day at work.
Hackett’s company, I noticed, had space for fourteen T.E.U.s booked on board.
“Pardon my ignorance, but what’s a T.E.U.?”
“Twenty-Foot-Equivalent Unit,” Hamilton said, holding the phone in place between chin and shoulder. “Standard size for a shipping container. Each one holds around thirteen hundred sixty cubic feet.”
I did some fast mental arithmetic. “Is it just me, or would just shy of twenty thousand cubic feet hold a hell of a lot of mosaics?”
Hamilton threw me a distracted grin and began snapping orders to whoever picked up at the other end of the line. I moved to the window to give her space, tipped the spout of the coffeepot over my cup with more hope than expectation. What came out was closer to sludge than coffee. I put it back on the tray.
When she ended the call, I stuck my hands in my back pockets.
“Well?”
She shrugged. “Fortunately, the US Navy has beefed up its presence in the Arabian Sea to keep a check on materials destined for the Iranian nuclear program. If the Dolphin turns south once she reaches the Gulf of Aden, they’ll head her off at the pass.”
“And if she turns north for Suez?”
“Well, I do believe we just so happen to have an increased presence in the Mediterranean, also, to help with the refugee crisis. Either way, she’ll be stopped and boarded.”
“I have to say, Aubrey, I’m impressed you have that kind of clout.”
She laughed. “Don’t be fooled. The navy gets all the big guns, and those boys just love to get ’em out and play with ’em,” she said. “Wanna come along for the ride?”
FORTY-EIGHT
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU TURNED HER DOWN?”
The disbelief in Parker’s voice might have been comical in other circumstances.
“Just that—I said no.”
“Just like that, you said no to going aboard a United States battleship to pursue, stop, and board a suspected smuggler? You’ve no soul, Charlie.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it would have been quite an experience,” I admitted, “but stopping the flow of looted artifacts from the Middle East is Hamilton’s job. Mine is to get hold of Sean again and keep hold of him this time.”
“I guess when you put it like that, I should be congratulating you on your single-minded determination to get the job done.”
“Yes you should,” I agreed primly. “I expect flowers and a raise when I get back, at the very least.”
“You know I’d send you a dozen red roses every day, Charlie, if I thought you wouldn’t make me eat them.” It might have been said lightly, but
somehow I knew it was not intended to be taken the same way.
“Hmm, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea, would it?” My own tone was gentle, and, though it hadn’t been my intention, it contained a hint of regret.
Parker was a quiet man who did not often let his feelings show. He’d revealed himself to me while Sean had been in his coma, and neither of us had been comfortable about that. Another time, another place, maybe Parker and I might have got together, but there were all kinds of reasons why it was never going to happen, even though Sean had made it clear that he and I had very little future.
There were always going to be the misogynists and the chauvinists in the private security industry who refused to believe that female operatives could keep pace with the guys. Therefore, twisted logic dictated that any women employed in the upper echelons must have slept their way to the position. Any relationship I had with Parker outside the office would instantly add fuel to the fire.
And, one way or another, I’d been through more than enough of that already.
Parker cleared his throat into the silence that had fallen between us and said, “We haven’t found any other property listed where Hackett might have gone to ground. So, what’s your next move?”
“I’m not sure hanging around here is a good idea. Sean now knows I’m after him, which means he’s going to cover his tracks more thoroughly, and I can’t make any kind of official inquiries without having some very awkward questions to answer about Docksy’s murder.”
“I concur, although I think Hamilton might be able to keep some of the heat away from you.”
“Ha, in a country that’s mostly sand and desert, that might be a tall order.” I let my breath out long and slow. “So, there’s only one name left on the list.”
“Donalson?”
“Uh-huh. I assume Madeleine gave you a location for him along with the others?”
“She did, but are you sure you want to do this, Charlie? I mean, I appreciate it was hard enough for you—going after Sean—without bringing back a whole mess of bad memories on top of that.”
“I’m trying not to think of it as bringing back bad memories,” I told him. “Instead, I’m laying ghosts to rest.”
FORTY-NINE
I FLEW OUT OF AMMAN ON AN AIR FRANCE PLANE THAT LEFT IN THE middle of the night and arrived in Manchester, via Paris, before breakfast. As I shuffled through the formalities of Immigration and Passport Control, I felt weary to my bones and thoroughly secondhand.
So when I emerged through the airlock of Customs into the Arrivals hall, I initially didn’t register the woman calling my name. And when I did, my first thought was that bloody Hamilton had tracked me all the way here as well.
But when I turned, it was to see Madeleine Rimmington waving from the other side of the barrier. She was dressed in what looked like a black quilted ski jacket with fake-fur hood thrown back, belted at her narrow waist, designer black trousers and boots, and she was smiling.
I suppressed a groan. Madeleine has never been anything other than pleasant to me, but something about her always rubbed me the wrong way. She was tall, elegant, clever, and articulate, as if that wasn’t enough reason to dislike her. When we first met, I thought there was something going on between her and Sean—an impression not dispelled by the fact she was running interference against his matchmaking mother. Since then, I discovered Madeleine’s happily engaged to a chef, but a faint antagonism lingers—on my part, anyway.
Now I wished I’d taken a moment to visit the ladies to run a comb through my hair and splash some cold water on the bags beneath my eyes. In my defense, I hadn’t been expecting anyone to meet me.
“Hi, Madeleine,” I said, trying to inject enthusiasm into my voice. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled at me, a high-wattage smile that made the stranger who’d been walking alongside me falter in midstride just from the by-blow. She had that effect.
“How could I let you come in alone without being here to meet you?” she said, reaching for my scruffy bag. “Is this all your luggage?”
I nodded, distracted, as I fell into step. “It must be a three-hour drive from Kings Langley. When did you set off?”
“Oh, I came up last night,” she said breezily. “I’m at the Radisson Blu. Thought you might appreciate a shower before I take you on wherever you need to go.”
I stopped dead. “Madeleine, you can’t—” I hesitated, took a breath, and started again, trying to sound more reasonable. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come anywhere with me.”
She stopped, too, turned with nothing more than polite inquiry on her smooth features. The crowd parted and moved around us, like water diverted by stones on the bottom of a stream.
“Why, what exactly are you planning to do, Charlie?”
I shrugged, walked on. “I was going to play that one by ear.”
She laughed. “Funny thing. I asked Sean the same question when he first put me onto tracing Clay for him. He said almost the same thing, and look how that turned out.”
“I don’t believe Sean did it.”
At my side now, she glanced at me. “Of course he didn’t. Did you ever think he might have?”
Her utter certainty threw me. “Parker was . . . concerned.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, I don’t know Parker as well as you, obviously, but I do know Sean, and there was never any doubt in my mind.”
The mild censure irritated me more than hostility would have done. “You used to know him. None of us do anymore. He’s not the same person.”
“Hmm, so I keep being told.”
We reached the Skylink moving walkway and stepped onto it. Madeleine would have kept walking, but I touched her arm.
“You’ve talked to him recently. Don’t you think he’s changed?”
She frowned for a moment. “He has, but nowhere near as much as you and Parker suggest. He still seems to possess the same values, the same sense of honor and decency he always had.”
To you, maybe.
I shook my head. “There are big chunks of his memory missing—important chunks, as far as I’m concerned. He doesn’t view me as the same person I was before the coma.”
The end of the walkway was approaching. She straightened, faced forward, and said diffidently, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered that you might not be?”
I stood in the walk-in shower in Madeleine’s hotel room with my hands braced against the tiles, letting the water pound my neck and shoulders. I had the temperature set as high as I could stand it, and the room was full of steam despite the extractor fan’s best efforts.
All the while, I tried to think back over situations I’d been in with Sean since he came back to work, conversations I’d had with him, with Parker.
Yes, I admitted privately, I had changed. There had been little choice. Sean had come back below par and I’d been forced to step up in his stead. But that was all I’d done, wasn’t it—filled a void he’d left empty?
Or had I somehow taken it further? Further than I’d needed to in some effort to prove I was worthy of the time, expense, and trust that Parker had invested in me. Had it always been hanging around at the back of my mind that people saw me as a mere adjunct of Sean? That without him there to act as icebreaker, I would not have been considered worthy on my own merits?
Parker’s interest in me on a personal level made things harder. I suppose somewhere deep inside I wondered if that was why he kept me on, even as he contemplated ending Sean’s involvement with the agency.
Not just ending it, but he’d asked me to be the one to pull the trigger.
No, that wasn’t fair. I reminded myself that even when Parker had told me where Sean had gone and what he feared he might have done, back at the beginning, he’d argued against me going after him.
Because he didn’t think I was up to the job.
Looking at it from any kind of moral standpoint, I shouldn’t
have been.
Parker had asked me to kill for him. Not only that, but to kill the man who’d been my mentor, my lover, the father of my never-to-be-born child.
He’d put the fear in my mind that Sean had gone after Clay on my behalf, and as a result he would suffer, that he’d hate the consequences of his actions when they caught up with him. That Sean himself would rather be dead than rotting behind bars.
If Parker had tried to talk me into it, I would probably have resisted, but he hadn’t. He’d tried to talk me out of it instead, and I’d jumped at the chance. Was I saving Sean from himself, or assuaging my own guilt?
Had I let my own insecurities over my work and the way my capabilities might be viewed persuade me to cross a line that should have been an absolute barrier?
Or had I, in truth, already crossed it a long time ago?
FIFTY
“DREW DONALSON CAME OUT OF THE ARMY NOT LONG AFTER YOU did, as a matter of fact,” Madeleine said. “His parents died—left him some money. He bought a small farm out in the middle of nowhere on Saddleworth Moor and has been there ever since.”
She accelerated the Land Rover Discovery onto the M60 Manchester ring road, flicking on the windshield wipers as she did so. An earlier drizzle had hardened into rain—big, fat droplets that scrambled for grip on the Disco’s glass before whipping away in the slipstream.
“A farmer?” I queried. “Doesn’t sound much like the guy I remember. He was more of a . . . city slicker.”
“Well, some people do change.” She glanced over her outside shoulder and switched lanes with smooth precision. She drove with the same neat economy of movement with which she did everything. Bitchily, I could even imagine her having sex the same way.
“Maybe he finds it easier to hide the bodies out there.”
She threw me a disappointed little look but didn’t speak. I stared out of the side window at the outskirts of Manchester, leafless trees, brown grass embankments, and concrete bridges dark with dirt and spray.
