They were in a second maintenance room, smaller, with a watertight door ahead. With body-shaking relief, Amy closed the door behind them.
She sank down, resting her head on her knees, and began trembling. Uncontrollably.
The alarm on her reader continued beeping, but it sounded far away; all she heard was her blood pounding in her ears, her heart throbbing within her wall of ribs.
The fear consumed her; the terror she’d been fighting now rose up and swamped her, body and soul.
How could anyone have planned something so evil?
Alek groaned and blinked. He pulled off his mask and looked around, dazed. He frowned. “You saved me? Why?”
Amy laughed weakly. “I must have had a reason, but I can’t think of it right now.”
Alek stood up, but Amy spotted the twist of agony. He peeled off his sealed suit.
Amy stopped him. “What’s that?”
The sleeve was torn and blood dripped from a tear along Alek’s arm. He looked at it and dismissed it. “I must have caught it on the edge of the plate. It’s nothing.”
“That’s not nothing. Dr. Lin warned us about the suits. They were the only things protecting—”
“It’s nothing,” Alek insisted. “You have my thanks, and for that I give you a parting gift. I know what Nathaniel is planning next.”
Amy’s eyes widened. “It’s not over?”
“Go to Attleboro. He has invited all his allies there to celebrate his victory, to reestablish the Cahill organization, to decide its future. I was asked to attend. He said he had a reward for us.”
Amy’s mind raced. “I’m guessing it’s not flowers and candy.”
Alek smiled. “No. Now I suspect he intends to kill us all.”
“A final double cross.”
So Nathaniel didn’t just want to destroy his rivals—he intended to destroy his allies, too. She thought about Vikram, Magnus, Melinda, and the others who’d all thrown their lot in with the Outcast, hoping for a piece of his empire, never realizing he wanted to rule alone.
“When’s this gathering?” she asked, her thumb on her cell keyboard.
“Two days from now.”
Ian and Cara. They were the closest. If they were in Kiev today, a twelve-hour flight and some traveling would get them to Attleboro the day of the assassination. It would be close, but she wasn’t going to let Nathaniel commit mass murder, even on her enemies.
Amy didn’t move. “What are you going to do?”
Alek gazed at his hands. He balled them into fists. “Go visit Nathaniel Hartford.”
That sounded as if it was going to end violently, for him or Nathaniel.
“Take me with you. He has Dan.”
Alek scowled. “I do not chaperone children. And my business with Nathaniel promises to be bloody. Now go before I change my mind.”
Amy stubbornly stayed exactly where she was. “Take me with you. You need me.”
Alek arched an eyebrow. “Oh, and how do you imagine you might be of any help to me?”
“You needed me in that pipe.”
Alek looked at her as if he was measuring her will to do what was necessary. “Very well. We need to move quickly, and we have a long way to go. I have some old friends within the Chinese government. They can arrange transportation for us.”
“But what about my friends? Jonah and Ham?”
“The Tomas I shot?”
Amy froze.
Alek Spasky was a cold-blooded killer. He showed no remorse at having almost killed Ham. No embarrassment.
Then again, Grace had done similar things, hadn’t she? She’d ordered deaths, then still had time for tea afterward. Amy thought back to birthday parties her grandmother had thrown for her and her brother. Then the long silent times when she’d be in her study, door closed and talking in whispers. Ruling the Cahills and being their silver-haired grandmother.
Was Alek really any different?
Was he just another creation of the Cahills? An unpleasant necessity?
He wants revenge on Nathaniel. And I’m just playing along.
“Where are we going?” Amy asked.
“Alaska. Nathaniel has built a new research facility there.”
Amy’s heart skipped a beat. “What sort of facility?”
“You are afraid for your brother?”
Amy could only nod. Fear had taken her voice.
Alek’s face was grim. “You should be.”
Attleboro, Massachusetts
Two days later
“I cannot believe we’re doing this,” said Cara. “Tell me again, why are we doing this?”
Ian shrugged. “Because we’re the good guys?”
“Good guys saving bad guys?”
“And through our actions these bad guys may see the error of their ways, give up their lives of villainy, and return to the side of the angels.”
“You really believe that?” asked Cara.
“No, not in the slightest. I personally hope my father ends up in a very deep, dark dungeon for the rest of his life.”
Ian rocked back on his heels. From their hiding place in the orchard they had a good view of the front of the Cahill mansion.
He ached from too much traveling and not enough resting. That flight out of Kiev in the cargo plane was not something he ever wanted to repeat, and the only bonus was having proper alone-time with Cara. But she’d been all business, wanting to review the information gathered from Amy in Shanghai, and Sammy and Nellie from the Black Forest.
It had been overwhelming, and they’d needed the whole flight to make sense of it and plan their next step. Which was to follow the lead given to them by Alek Spasky, who’d warned them that Nathaniel was planning to kill off all his allies tonight, at the celebratory party in Attleboro.
Ian raised the binoculars and searched the grounds.
It had changed. Nathaniel had removed the topiary along the drive, changed the two nymphs on the fountain to sea snakes, and put up a greenhouse. Of the changes, the greenhouse was the only one Ian approved of. The design reminded him of Kew Gardens. “Those beehives are new,” he said, pointing at six domes on the edge of the lawn. “Nathaniel must love fresh honey.”
“Looks like the Outcast is throwing a party,” said Cara. “Check out the size of that tent.”
“Nathaniel has reasons to be happy.” Ian scanned the three catering vans. Waiters were transferring silver dishes back and forth to the tent and trolleys of champagne and dessert into the greenhouse. “Unless I’m mistaken, he’s even imported truffles from Salzburg.” He sniffed the air again. “No, I’m wrong.… ”
“No one can smell truffles from here.”
“Not Salzburg. Alpbach,” Ian concluded. He’d learned to ski there. Back in better days. He pointed at the rearmost van, the one with the snowflake logo. “And that lorry has come all the way from Alaska. Look at the license plate.”
“Livia’s Sorbet Company? Nathaniel’s spent a lot of money on just a few tubs of ice cream.”
“It rings a vague bell,” said Ian, frowning. “It must be very special. I remember once having tea with the Duke of Brixtonshire and tasting the most delightful jam. I asked him—”
She was giving him the look, so Ian decided to hold off explaining the paradise that was to be found in a spoon of that particular jam. It was, incidentally, his father’s favorite, too. Nathaniel had a sly sense of humor, giving the condemned man his favorite meal before his execution.
Tires on the gravel behind forced them to crouch lower. A limousine rolled past, its windows tinted and the license plate English.
Ian’s blood ran cold.
The limo parked by the entrance to what had been, until very recently, Ian’s home.
Vikram Kabra opened his own door and emerged. He paused to gaze about him, as though a lord inspecting his new domain.
“Greedy as ever,” muttered Ian. “How many homes do you have already?”
Cara held Ian’s hand, and the hot rage that had b
een rising, almost unnoticed, began to cool.
Vikram adjusted his bow tie and buttoned his dinner jacket. Still, he lingered.
“He’s measuring the windows for new curtains,” said Ian. “He’s thinking the same thing as all the others.”
“That once Nathaniel’s gone, they’ll take command of the Cahills.”
“Exactly.” Ian shook his head. “They don’t understand Nathaniel at all.”
But the clues had been there all along. One after the other, Nathaniel had worked toward destroying each of the branches of the Cahills. It was only logical, in a twisted kind of way, that he’d want to destroy his allies, too.
“We can’t just march in there and tell everyone that Nathaniel plans to kill them,” said Cara.
“No. We need to find out what the Outcast’s move will be. Neutralize it and use it as proof. That’ll get them … on our side.” He took off his jacket and folded it neatly. “Come on. We need to get inside.” Ian stood up and held out his hand. “Follow me.”
Cara stood up beside him. She took his hand. “Don’t you know it.”
They waited for the waiter to leave the catering van before they dashed the ten yards from the edge of the trees to the back of the van. A quick jump and they were in. They rummaged around until Cara held up a white waiter’s jacket. “This should fit you.” She tossed it over and found one for herself.
She put it on. Ian smiled approvingly. Cara looked pretty great in anything.
“What’s to stop them from noticing us?” she said as she tucked her hair into a cap.
“We’re not going to serve at the table, and given what snobs my father and the rest of them are, it’s beneath them to notice the hired help.”
They jumped out of the van. Ian checked his watch. “They’ll be serving in about fifteen minutes. They’ll be having predinner cocktails right now, probably on the southern terrace. That’ll give us time to check the front half of the mansion.”
Cara grabbed a spare tray and handed Ian an empty crystal jug. “We need to look like we’re busy doing something,” she said. They walked to the front entrance. Cara paused to take a deep breath. “Better put your game face on.”
“The trouble is my game is test cricket,” said Ian. “That’s usually played over five days with breaks for tea.”
Cara shook her head. “Then I’d better go first.”
The two guards at the door nodded them in. They’d watched waiters go in and out all evening; these two barely registered. It was all going according to plan.
They were in the hallway. Ian pointed up the sweeping staircase. “We’ll start up top and work our way down. I’ll take the west—”
“You there!” A man emerged from the side door, the one that led into the kitchens. “I asked for four crates of Bollinger and there are only three! Go speak—”
Ian blinked at the man. It was Mr. Berman, his ex-butler. The trouble was that while snobs might not notice the servants, the servants themselves noticed the servants.
Mr. Berman blinked, his jaw working up and down. Then his voice returned. “Ian … Kabra … ?”
“Uh-oh,” said Cara.
Berman stumbled away, took a deep breath, and shouted. “Ian Kabra!”
Cara slammed her tray into Berman’s face with a deafening clang. Ian caught him as he collapsed.
The two guards burst in, pistols out. “Don’t move!”
Ian whimpered. “The poor man fainted!”
The guard kept his weapon steady and aimed at Ian’s forehead. “We heard something. A bang. What was that?”
“Er … ” Ian glanced about. He wasn’t good at this bluffing thing. “Er … ”
“It was the dinner gong,” said Cara. She held up the padded club next to the copper gong standing beside the staircase. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“Yes … I think the shock of someone other than him hitting it was too much,” said Ian. “Mr. Berman takes that sort of thing very seriously. You know what butlers are like.”
They didn’t, so they were willing to believe. The guard scanned the hallway once more, couldn’t see any obvious threats, and reholstered his firearm. “What are you going to do with him?”
Ian nodded to a side door. “There’s a couch in the library.”
Cara grabbed the butler’s legs as the guards returned to their posts.
“Come on,” said Ian, holding Berman from under his shoulders. “We want the door on the right.”
“That’s not the library, Ian.”
“No, it’s the broom cupboard.”
They shoved him in with the mops and buckets, having to bend him double so he’d fit. Ian locked the door. “Now, where were we?”
“Trying to stop Nathaniel from killing everyone. How do you think he’ll do it? Use the guards?”
“Not enough of them. Too great a chance someone will escape. I’d suggest a bomb, but Nathaniel won’t want the mansion damaged, not right after having spent all this time refurbishing it.” Ian tapped a bronze bust that stood beside him in a neat alcove in the hall. “He’s even had old Octavian polished.”
“Octavian? A family member?”
Ian smiled. Really, sometimes he wondered what exactly kids learned in the American education system. “Hardly. Octavian was the birth name of Augustus Caesar, the first Roman emperor. He was the adopted son—”
“Whatever,” snapped Cara. She gazed out the window toward the lawn. “Snipers? There’s plenty of places you could hide them. There could be a dozen in that tree right now.”
“The glass in the greenhouse is bulletproof. It could take a direct hit from a fifty caliber and still not break.”
“How do you know that?”
Ian winced. “I … er … had it installed. They were doing a discount.”
“You’re not like other boys, are you?” She snapped her fingers. “The catering! What if he’s poisoned one of the dishes? Amy said Alek had warned her that Nathaniel was studying toxins.”
Ian paled. “Only the most base, uncouth philistine would even consider spoiling such a dinner.” Then he returned his attention to the Roman emperor. “What was that sorbet company called?”
“Livia, I think.”
“Livia was the name of Augustus’s wife. It’s said that he wanted to pass the reins of power to one of his generals, not Livia’s son by another marriage, Tiberius.”
“So?”
“So she wanted to make sure Tiberius became emperor. She knew Augustus had a fondness for figs.… ”
Cara winced. “Let me guess, she poisoned the figs?”
“Every single one on his favorite fig tree. Took all night, they say.”
Cara smiled. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Ian’s smile mirrored hers. “The sorbet.”
Alaska
Amy gazed down at the vast field of trees. The Alaskan wilderness spread out in all directions. It was as if she’d gone to the edge of the world and left humanity behind.
The thought seized her. To wander into the trees and disappear. She could imagine it—the silence, the peace.
The steady, constant drone of the helicopter made her drowsy. That, and the fact she’d not slept since … when? Ages ago.
Getting out had been harder than expected. After the near disaster with the Shanghai reactor, the whole place had been on lockdown. Word must have gotten out it was an act of sabotage, so the government had come down hard, suspecting terrorism.
They’d not been able to risk flying out of Shanghai, so they had paid off a truck driver to smuggle them out of the city, and that had cost them time.
They’d found a small regional airport, then swapped flights in Hong Kong, another frustrating day not knowing what was happening to Dan.
Now Amy was close, but dreaded the lost time, time Dan had been left at the mercy of a man willing to blow up a city.
Please don’t let me be too late.
Alek pointed to a ridge ahead. “There’s the valley. We’ll h
ave to land on this side and cross over on foot if we’re to avoid being spotted.”
“Just as long as we get Dan.”
The helicopter banked to the left and descended, so within a minute they were skimming over the treetops. Alek kept the course pond-smooth, riding the air as lightly as a feather. “There.”
It was a clearing, actually a patch of snowy ground beside a frozen river. Amy spotted a couple of outbuildings and a narrow dirt track disappearing into the forest.
“It’s an old hunting lodge,” said Alek. “No one uses it anymore.”
The engine whined as he shifted up a gear and hovered over the center of the clearing. Clouds of snow swirled in the vortex of the rotor blades, but Amy could see Alek was an expert at this. The helicopter touched down with perfect precision.
Amy jumped out the moment the propellers stopped turning, her backpack on one shoulder. She wanted to get a move on.
Alek hopped out. He tossed his own pack into the patchy snow then, with much more care, then removed a second, longer bag.
“What’s in here?” Somehow Amy didn’t think it was a fishing rod.
Alek unzipped a few inches, revealing the dark steel of a barrel. “It’s my sniper rifle. A Mauser SR-93, but I had a gunsmith in Vienna make a few modifications. It’s good at—”
“We’re not taking it,” Amy declared.
“We’re here to stop Nathaniel. And a bullet does that very effectively.”
Yes, Alek was right. Stopping Nathaniel Hartford had to be their priority, even before saving Dan. But it was hard to think like that. How could she separate the needs of the mission, ending the Outcast’s madness, with her personal desire to save her brother?
And as bad as Shanghai could have been, she knew that it was not Nathaniel’s endgame. There was more to come, worse to come.
“I don’t like guns. It makes killing the first option when it should be the last.” She waved at his jacket. “And that Walther PPK you have tucked under your armpit can stay here, too.”
He glowered, but relented. The pistol came out and he slammed it down on the pilot seat. “Satisfied? Perhaps you should tie both my hands behind my back also?”
How did I end up here? Working with a KGB assassin?
Mission Atomic Page 12
