Rules of Vengeance

by Christopher Reich

  From the back door came the sound of an automobile. The engine cut and a door slammed. A few moments later, Jamie Meadows stepped inside. “Jesus, man, look at you. What the hell happened?”

  “Can we talk?” said Jonathan.

  Meadows kissed his wife. “We’ll be upstairs in the study, Pru. Be a dear and bring me a little something. Ham sandwich would be nice. Lots of mustard. The hot stuff.”

  Meadows led Jonathan to a cozy wood-paneled study on the second floor and pointed to a high-backed captain’s chair. “Sit,” he commanded. “Speak.”

  With a sigh, Jonathan sat. “I need a place to stay.”

  “Thought you were at the Dorchester.”

  “I am. I mean, I was. I checked out.”

  “You’re serious? And you want to stay here? Don’t get me wrong, you’re welcome. Stay as long as you like. It’s just that I don’t think a trundle bed in the kids’ room is an even trade.”

  “Something’s come up.”

  Meadows refilled Jonathan’s glass. Setting down the decanter, he pointed to the cuts on Jonathan’s face. “You look like you were in a fist fight and you lost.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Out with it. It’s me, Jamie. I’ve got enough skeletons for two closets.” He offered a sneaky grin as consolation. “Not a woman, is it? I know some of you aid docs. You’ve got a warm gal stashed in every port.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “It’s not Emma, is it? You’re not hiding from your wife?”

  “I’m hiding, but it’s not from Emma. It’s from the police.”

  “Stop having me on. What’s up?”

  Jonathan leveled his gaze at his friend. “I’m not kidding.”

  Meadows’s face dropped like a stone. “For real? The police?”

  “You heard about the car bomb today?”

  “Bloody savages,” said Meadows. “London’s not safe to walk in any longer.”

  “I was there. That’s where I got these cuts. Flying glass. Debris. In fact, you could say I was part of it.”

  “You’re joking.” But there was no mirth in Meadows’s voice.

  “I wish I were.”

  “What were you doing there?” asked Meadows. “I mean, why … how?”

  “I can’t tell you. Believe me, you don’t want to know. It wouldn’t be safe.”

  “Safe? You’re on the run from the police and you come to my house where my children are asleep. Don’t tell me about safe. If you’re dragging me into something, I want to know what it’s about.”

  “I can’t. It’s not just about hiding from the police, either. There’s more to it than that.” Jonathan stood and made to leave. “I’m sorry I came. I see now that I shouldn’t have. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Meadows lumbered to his feet. “Wait just a second. You haven’t been arrested, have you?”

  “No,” said Jonathan. “Not officially.”

  “You didn’t set off that bomb, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’m not harboring a bloody serial killer?”

  Jonathan couldn’t stop from smiling. “No. You’re good there.”

  “All right, then. Offer holds. You can stay as long as you like. But I’ll have to tell Pru. Not all, mind, but at least some of it. You can have Frannie’s room. Don’t mind sprites and unicorns, do you? She’s going through the fairy stage. Bed might be a tad short, but at least it’s soft.”

  “The couch downstairs is fine,” said Jonathan, standing.

  “Wouldn’t hear of it. Can’t have the best surgeon I’ve ever known busting his back on that monstrous contraption. We’ve got to take good care of those magic hands. Keep them in good stead until they can save some more lives.”

  “Thank you, Jamie. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

  “But what are you going to do?” asked Meadows.

  “Right now? I’m going to sleep.”

  “I mean tomorrow or the next day. You can’t run forever.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “Then what?”

  Jonathan threw a hand on Jamie’s meaty shoulder and gave a pat.

  Magic hands.

  The words hit him like a hammer. Emma had used the same words to describe his surgical skills last night.

  It had to be a coincidence, he thought, looking into Meadows’s eyes. Surely it was a common enough expression. But no amount of mental cajoling, no calls on camaraderie or loyalty could fool him. A surgeon might have gifted hands or supple hands or healing hands, but “magic hands”? He’d never heard the expression before.

  Jonathan stared harder at Meadows. Now that he thought of it, the mention of his magic hands wasn’t the only coincidence. Jamie’s first posting with the National Health Service had been in Cornwall. Emma’s cover story had her growing up in Penzance, also in Cornwall. Jamie had been up at Oxford. Emma claimed to have graduated from there, as well.

  And what about the agenda downstairs? Prudence Meadows had said in no uncertain terms that they had been planning to go to the medical conference. Yet according to the agenda, they’d had a dinner engagement with Chris and Serena scheduled. An engagement obviously canceled at the last moment.

  There is no such thing as coincidence. It was practically Emma’s mantra.

  “This way to Fairyland,” said Meadows. “Come, good Oberon.”

  Jonathan followed him into the bedroom. After saying goodnight, he waited a few minutes, then crept into the hallway. The corridor was dark and silent. Meadows had gone back downstairs. His voice could be heard talking urgently on the phone in the kitchen. No doubt he was calling Division, letting them know he had Emma Ransom’s husband in captivity and asking for instructions.

  Jonathan padded into Meadows’s study. By the light of the desk lamp, he searched for a weapon. His eyes landed on a letter opener. It was long and sharp, with a carved ivory handle. More of a dagger than an office tool. He picked it up.

  Silently he descended the stairs.

  Meadows was sitting at the kitchen table. He looked up abruptly. “You scared me.”

  Jonathan approached cautiously, the letter opener pressed against his leg. “Who were you talking to?”

  Meadows tried on a smile. “Oh, that… nobody.”

  “Who, Jamie?”

  “My nurse. Have a special case in the morning. I’d just remembered that we needed some extra meds.”

  “You said I had magic hands.”

  Meadows considered this, confused. “Did I?”

  “Emma used the same expression when I saw her yesterday. I was wondering how it came up between the two of you.”

  Meadows peered at Jonathan, mystified. “The two of us? Me and Emma? It didn’t. I’ve never met your wife.”

  “I just thought it was an odd coincidence. I mean, I’ve never heard it put that way before, and then here you are talking on the phone about me. It was about me, wasn’t it, Jamie?”

  “Of course it wasn’t. I told you, it was my nurse.”

  Jonathan went on. “What time is it in Washington, anyway? Let’s see … it must be just about five in the afternoon. All the staff still at their desks? Emma said Division works twenty-four/seven. Lights always on.”

  Meadows was shaking his head. “I wasn’t talking to D.C. I was talking to my office.”

  “At eleven o’clock?” Jonathan registered his disapproval. “I’d grade your story as weak, Jamie. Not up to Division standards.”

  Meadows smiled uncomfortably. “What the hell is this ‘Division’ you keep talking about?”

  “You tell me. After all, you’ve been there long enough. I am curious: did they bring you in before Oxford or after? Did you point Emma in my direction? That’s one thing I’ve always wondered about.”

  “Would you stop this nonsense? Actually, Jonathan, you’re frightening me.”

  “What did they want you to do? Keep me here until they show up? Kill me or just follow me?”

  “Kill you
?” Meadows’s eyes widened. “I think you’d better leave. You were right. It isn’t safe.”

  “You worked in Cornwall,” said Jonathan.

  “At Duchy Hospital. So what?”

  “That’s near Penzance, where Emma said she was from. At Oxford, you were at Brasenose before medical school. So was Emma. And then there’s the matter of the couch.”

  “The couch?”

  “I guess that’s just good tradecraft. You couldn’t let me sleep there. It’s too near the front door. I could up and go without your knowing it. You needed me upstairs, where you could keep an eye on me until your friends come.”

  A sheen of sweat had popped out on Meadows’s forehead. “Friends? What friends? Jesus, Jonathan, get a grip! It’s me, Jamie, you’re talking to.”

  But Jonathan wasn’t listening. He knew about Emma’s training. It was all about cover. He glanced toward the front door. “Are they coming now?”

  It was then that Meadows discovered the letter opener. “Don’t do it,” he said, his voice rising. “Whatever it is you have in mind. Don’t. I’m not with Division. I’ve never met Emma. Swear on my children’s lives. Whole magic hands thing—coincidence. Something I must have heard somewhere. Pure chance.” He was rising from his chair, hands in front of his body. The sweat was coming now, gathering in his bushy eyebrows and sliding down his pink cheeks. “Pru!” Meadows began to call, but Jonathan was around the table and on him before he could get the name out. He clamped a hand over Meadows’s mouth and pressed the tip of the letter opener against his neck. “Quiet,” he said.

  Meadows nodded furiously.

  Jonathan lowered the blade, then removed his hand from Meadows’s mouth. “I need some money.”

  “In my wallet. It’s on the counter by the key basket. Take whatever’s there. Should be several hundred quid. Take the ATM card, too. PIN’s one-one-one-one. Please, no lectures. It’s too easy, I know already. You can have my car, too. It’s a Jag. Fast as all hell. I won’t call the police. Not right away, anyway. I mean, later I’ll have to. Insurance and all that. The thing cost a fortune.”

  Jonathan found the wallet and counted the bills. The total came to five hundred and seventy pounds. He snatched the car keys. “The one out back?”

  Meadows nodded. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. You could have just asked.”

  “Maybe, but then …” Jonathan caught himself. There was something in Jamie’s eyes that wasn’t right. The man was genuinely frightened. Jonathan knew with a sudden and complete confidence that it wasn’t an act. “You’re not with Division, are you?”

  Jamie Meadows shook his head.

  “You don’t know Emma?”

  “Never had the pleasure.”

  Jonathan sighed. Suddenly he felt very tired. “Will you wait until tomorrow to call the police about the car?”

  Meadows waved off the question. “I’ll wait a week.”

  “I’ll pay you back for the cash.”

  “Whenever. Take your time.”

  Jonathan nodded, turning toward the back door. He advanced one step, then stopped. There remained a last, nagging issue. “What about the conference? Why did you tell me that you’d been planning on going for so long?”

  “It was my idea,” said Prudence Meadows, from across the room. “Couldn’t have you thinking we’d only just learned you were in town. You’d have become suspicious.”

  She stood at the base of the stairs. She was wearing silk pajamas, and in her right hand she held a pistol.

  27

  “Pru, what the hell are you doing?” asked Jamie Meadows.

  “Shhh, darling. We don’t want to wake the children.” She was screwing a fire suppressor onto the snout of the pistol. Finished, she held it at arm’s length, pointed squarely at Jonathan’s chest. “It was me Jamie heard. I was the one who commented on your magic hands. It was something Emma told me years ago. She never did stop bragging about you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Meadows continued, if anything louder than before. “What the hell is that you’re holding?”

  “Jonathan, do you want to tell him? Might as well, since you’ve seen fit to tell him so much besides.”

  “Your wife works for Division,” said Jonathan, never taking his eyes from Prudence Meadows. “They’re trying to find Emma and kill her.”

  “Nonsense,” protested Meadows, as if he weren’t staring at his wife six meters away, brandishing a semiautomatic pistol. “Pru? Tell him. It’s all a mixup. What is this Division you’re talking about, anyway?”

  “It’s an intelligence shop run by the Americans,” said Prudence. “We have MI6. They have the CIA. Division’s just smaller and a bit more secret.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Meadows.

  “She works for the same organization that Emma did,” said Jonathan. “They undertake covert operations around the world to advance American security concerns. Mostly they kill people.”

  “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” remarked Prudence, advancing a step. She looked at her husband. “I might add that we only kill people who need to be killed.”

  “I’ve never seen you before, have I?” asked Jonathan.

  “I’m a desk girl. I run things in our London office. Or used to, I should say. After Emma’s stunt, they practically shut us down. Moved things to Lambeth. Lambeth! But no, we haven’t seen each other before. We can’t all be like your wife. Just as well. I’m a bum for languages. I’ve got my English accent. That’s good enough.”

  “Your English accent?” said Jamie, perplexed. “You’re from Shropshire. Of course you have your English accent.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said Jonathan.

  Pru glanced at her watch, then went on. “Someone spotted you entering the country yesterday morning. The boss called and offered me full reinstatement if I could bring you in. Even a pay raise. We’re all very anxious to find your wife.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, Pru. He just wants to get out of England,” argued Meadows, on Jonathan’s behalf. “Go ahead, tell her. The police want him, but it’s a mistake.”

  “Be quiet, Jamie,” said Jonathan. “I need to speak to your wife.”

  “Did you meet her?” asked Prudence Meadows. “Is that where you went last night when you skipped out of the cocktail party?”

  Jonathan didn’t answer. He saw Prudence check her watch again and guessed that others were on their way. It was imperative he leave as quickly as possible.

  “So what did you have planned next?” Pru went on. “Hooking up with Emma down the road somewhere? It won’t be easy with every intelligence agency and cop shop on your tail. I don’t think a one-way ticket out of here is going to help much. It’s time to come in. Message to Jonathan: Division wants to help.”

  “Is that what they told you to say?”

  “Frank Connor’s word. You can ask him yourself. He should be here any minute.”

  She closed the distance between them, moving with unsteady steps. Jonathan raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and nonaggression, and as she came into the light, he saw that she wasn’t as cool and collected as she sounded. Her eyes blinked constantly and she was drawing each breath as if it might be her last. But then, like she said, she was office staff. Emma took care of the fieldwork.

  “You’re right,” said Jonathan. “A one-way ticket wouldn’t be much help. But I don’t think talking to your boss is going to make things any better.”

  “Of course it would,” pleaded Meadows. He was on his feet, coming round the table, shaking his head as if this whole thing were just a friendly misunderstanding. “Talking always helps.”

  “Stay there, dear,” said Pru.

  But Meadows kept coming.

  “I said stop!” Prudence shouted.

  Meadows froze. “Damn it, Jonathan,” he said. “They only want to talk to you.”

  “No, Jamie, they don’t. They want me to tell them where my wife is and then they’re probably going to kill b
oth of us.”

  “Pru, is that true?” asked Meadows.

  “No, Jamie. We have no intention of harming Jonathan. We just want to talk to him.”

  “See, Jonathan? You must believe Prudence.”

  “I’m sorry, Jamie, but I have to leave now.” Jonathan looked directly at Prudence. “I don’t know where my wife is. Tell that to Connor. I asked where she was going, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

  “I can’t allow that,” said Pru. “Just stay where you are. It will only be another minute.”

  Meadows was standing by a pillar that separated the kitchen from the living room. His expression said that it was all too much for him. The gun, the confession that his wife was a covert intelligence agent, the strain of the standoff. Anger was the only refuge left to him. “Wait a second, Pru,” he said. “Are you really going to hurt him?”

  “Sit down, Jamie, and mind your own business.”

  “I will not,” said Meadows, gathering steam and courage. “Jonathan’s a friend. I don’t care what it is you do or whom you work for. We’ll have to sort that out later. As for now, you’re going to put down that gun and allow Jonathan to leave.”

  The pistol coughed, and a chunk of plaster flew from the pillar a foot from Jamie Meadows’s head.

  “Stay there and shut up, darling. We’ll talk about this later.”

  But the shot only seemed to spur Meadows on. “I don’t give a damn, Pru,” he went on heatedly. “Are you going to shoot him? Are you going to shoot me, too? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Jamie, just stop!” she said.

  “You stop!”

  Prudence aimed the pistol at her husband. “I said stop, dammit.”

  Meadows pushed Jonathan out of the way and lunged for the gun. There was another cough, and Meadows collapsed to his knees. “Pru,” he said feebly and without blame, as if the victim of a random accident. “You shot me.”

  “Jamie?” she said.

  Meadows slid to the floor. Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth. Jonathan knelt and rolled Meadows onto his back, first clearing his air passage. Opening his shirt, he saw a neat black hole pulsing blood an inch above the sternum. If the bullet hadn’t pierced the heart itself, it had nicked a coronary artery. “Get me some towels,” he said. “Call an ambulance.”