“What ring?”
“That cult ring, the dragon and ruby thing.”
“Who gave him the ring?”
“The guard who disappeared,” Granger said slowly. “Biagi calmed down after the guard let him wear it for the drive. That’s all the other guard remembers before the black fog.”
“What do you have on the missing guard?”
“Nothing yet. He was with the polizia a couple of years. His name checks out.”
“He is il Dragone,” Falcon said quietly. “Did you check flights?”
“They’re checking now.”
“Confiscate Ruggiero’s ring, earrings, whatever has the il Dragone symbol on it,” Falcon said. “Tell the facility we’re keeping it and if they want it they have to see me.”
Darien strode past Granger to stop in the middle of Falcon’s office. “Where is the Cardiff girl?”
“My fiancée, Darien. You can say it.”
Darien wouldn’t look him in the eye. The skin on the nape of Falcon’s neck prickled as Alfonso Ruggiero’s words came back to him.
‘You have taken from us, and now il Dragone will not stop until they have destroyed what is most dear to you.’
“A man fitting Luciano Biagi’s description boarded a plane to England this afternoon,” Darien said.
Falcon pushed past him and grabbed his bags.
“The charter is waiting,” Darien called after him. “Tariq will drive you.”
Granger followed Falcon to the foyer. “You want me to call Cardiff?”
“I’ll call him on the way.”
Granger grabbed his arm before he crossed the threshold. “Stay calm and stay in touch.”
Falcon jumped into the car waiting for him at the curb.
* * * *
Falcon thought he’d caught a break when air traffic congestion delayed Luciano Biagi’s flight, but it wasn’t to be.
The commercial flights were backed up on the Leeds Airport runway, waiting to debark passengers. That included the flight carrying Angel and his mother.
He had only just arrived himself. Roman’s security detail briefed him on the arrangements. Angel and his mother would be met as planned, but not by Amelie and James. They would leave the airport under escort.
“Flight one sixty-seven at gate nine in ten minutes,” he heard in his ear.
Falcon moved to the newsstand in front of the camera shop, and leafed through a travel book on Spain. He made eye contact with the man in the camera shop, whose raincoat concealed a shoulder holster. The man took the camera he was admiring to the cashier.
Passengers of flight one sixty-seven came through the gate.
Falcon moved forward. He looked each passenger over and watched the families that met them, the lovers that hugged them.
Il Dragone could be anywhere.
He kept his expression neutral, but it made him sick to his stomach to realize that the cult was stronger than ever. And now they knew Angel’s true identity.
If it took him this lifetime into the next, he would kill them all. They could pick Luciano up today, and il Dragone would never stop coming. Angel would never be safe.
This wasn’t the world he wanted to raise their children in.
“Flight one twenty-two, gate five,” came over the earpiece.
Angel and his mother were on that plane. He couldn’t see the gate from here, but Roman’s people were waiting for them.
The last group of passengers of flight one sixty-seven came through the gate.
“Target approaching,” the man in the camera shop said through the earpiece.
There was a tall man, brawny and dark, and wearing sunglasses on this rainy evening in Leeds.
Falcon moved forward, nearly blocking the man’s path and no longer caring if he was recognized. The man glanced at him, and stepped to the side.
A woman approached the man, who grinned and took off the sunglasses. They kissed and walked past him arm in arm.
“That’s not him,” he said under his breath.
The last passenger to come through the gate was an elderly woman, escorted by an attendant.
Falcon walked over to an airport security guard standing near the gate, and showed the man his I.D. “Where are the pilots?”
“They’ve come through already, sir. Through there.” The guard pointed to an exit just off the gate. The door wasn’t visible from where he’d been standing when the passengers came through.
He moved past the airport guard. The man holding his newly purchased camera was by his side. He opened the door to a quiet white-walled corridor.
“You go up, I’ll go down.”
More security came through the door behind them and arrangements were made to cover the entire building.
Falcon and three guards took the stairs down, while the camera guy and his friends went up.
They went down three flights to reach a locked door at the bottom of the stairwell. No one had left or entered through this door, it was padlocked from the inside.
He started back up the stairs, with the guards behind him. “Nothing down here,” he said into his microphone. “How is flight one twenty-two?”
No answer.
“Come in on flight one twenty-two.”
There was static on the line.
Falcon took the stairs two at a time.
He reached the terminal level and pushed past a group of passengers from the next flight coming through gate nine. He ran through the terminal all the way to gate five, which was now empty.
“Baggage Claim,” he shouted to the guards.
He heard his mother before he saw her. She was laughing, thanking someone in her hearty Italian.
The man was as tall as he, and bulky. Luciano Biagi’s hair was cut short, military style, under the airport cap. He bent to pick up the two suitcases.
Falcon was almost there when his mother saw him.
“Armand!” His mother started walking towards him, but Luciano grabbed her. Holding her in front of him, he pressed a gun to her temple. The symbol of il Dragone glittered on his ring finger.
A guard ran out of the crowd and rushed Luciano. He didn’t get far. Luciano shot him between the eyes. The man dropped face down on the terminal floor.
“He’s dead!” Someone screamed. Suitcases were forgotten, baggage carriers deserted as people pushed and shoved their way through the terminal. A baby’s unending wail mingled with the background noise of airport alarms.
Overhead, shadows crawled across the airport’s ceiling.
Roman’s guard came out of the men’s room, holding his head. Blood ran through his fingers and trickled down his white cuffs. He saw Luciano in front of him and straightened.
“Zia Delfina! No!” Angel ran through the restroom door and came to a halt.
“Arr-maand,” Luciano grinned in satisfaction. “Son of Zia Delfina, no? Back away, Armand, if you want Mama to live.”
Falcon glanced up as the shadows on the ceiling came closer. He trained the Glock on the center of Luciano’s forehead. “Let her go. This is between you and me.”
“Put down your weapon!” Airport security shouted from where abandoned luggage littered the floor. Four of them came up slowly, guns trained on Luciano.
The light panels above the guard’s heads flickered as long shadows moved over them.
“Stop them, Arr-maand.” Luciano turned this way and that trying to keep an eye on the guards with an arm around Falcon’s mother’s fringed shawl.
Falcon raised a hand, and airport security stopped advancing, but did not put down their weapons. They glanced up at the light panels as a few flickered out.
Falcon met Angel’s gaze and she started walking backward towards the restroom door, her high heels clicking.
“Bell-e-za,” Luciano called, but didn’t take his eyes off Falcon. “Come, Belleza. Or Mama dies, eh?”
Falcon’s mother cursed Luciano, struggling in his arms.
Angel walked towards the laughing Luciano.
Luciano cocked the gun at Falcon’s mother’s temple. Angel kept walking.
The cameraman closed in on Luciano, just out of his sight on the other side of the baggage carousel, but Angel was already at Luciano’s side.
“Now,” Luciano moved away from the armed group and the darkness overhead followed. “We are going to leave this place. No one will follow, or I kill them.”
“Come, Belleza,” Luciano glanced in Angel’s direction, but faced the butt of a guard’s gun instead, just before it hit him on the temple. He loosened his grip on Falcon’s mother and the camera man dragged her away.
Luciano turned to launch himself at the guard and stopped cold when Falcon stuck a gun in his back.
Falcon relieved Luciano of his gun. Pulling the symbol of il Dragone off Luciano’s finger, he put it in his pocket. “Take her out of here, Angel.”
Angel hugged Falcon’s mother, and then pulled her away.
“Ciao, Belleza. I will see you again.” Luciano brought up an elbow but before it made contact with Falcon’s abdomen, he shackled Luciano’s wrists behind his back.
Angel stopped, her warm vanilla skin flushed with anger. Tiger’s eyes went wild as she looked at Luciano.
“Angel…”
The punch hit Luciano high on the cheek, rocking his head back.
Rubbing her knuckles, Angel spit in Luciano’s face. “I hope you rot in hell!”
“He’s not going to have that opportunity,” Falcon said just loud enough for her to hear.
Angel looked into his eyes and slowly nodded.
She knew what he meant, but that was not as surprising as her consent. She was already an assassin’s wife. He wasn’t so sure that’s what he wanted her to be.
Angel went to his mother, who heaped curses on Luciano as she backed away.
“Will you look at that?” An airport security guard was staring up at the ceiling.
The shadows receded. They slid into the walls and around corners. All the ceiling panels were functioning now.
Angel was staring at the ceiling. When she looked at Falcon, the questions in her eyes reminded him that she was still so innocent. She had no idea what they were up against, and he decided then that he couldn’t tell her.
She was going to get the beautiful wedding she wanted. She was going to be happy if he had to kill all the devils in the world to make it so.
Falcon winked. “I’ll see you soon.”
Angel turned her back then and hurried through the terminal with his mother and three guards.
Roman came towards them in a way that made Falcon wonder if he’d corrupted the entire family. He was sure he had when Roman stopped inches from Luciano’s face. “Where is it?” Roman asked.
Falcon dug into his pocket and took out Luciano’s ring. The rubies in the dragon’s eyes glinted under the airport lights. “Here.”
Roman’s smile was slow satisfaction. “Well, then, the jet is waiting.”
“Let’s be on our way.” Falcon escorted Luciano onto the Cardiff jet bound for Rome.
* * * *
Darien leaned against the doorframe. “So, tell me. How does one fall out of a plane in flight?”
Falcon put down the report on the police officer who’d helped Luciano escape on the way to prison. Either confident or ignorant, the man hadn’t even left the country. He’d been spotted in Naples’s Spanish Quarter.
“Luciano Biagi was going to jail for the rest of his life anyway,” he said.
Darien came into the office and sat on a chair in front of his desk. “No. I don’t think so. I think you knew Luciano Biagi was going to fall thirty-four thousand feet to his death before you escorted him onto that plane.”
Falcon leaned back in his chair. “What I know is just how twisted a place the world is.” He wanted to tell Darien who he’d been, the passionate Signor Tarcisio who spent his life trying to root out the evil in Forlì two hundred years ago, all for nothing.
Il Dragone was stronger than before, and had grown to ridiculous numbers. He wanted to explain how many people had been killed by il Dragone over the centuries. How many more would join the cult in a world where bored teenagers were searching for something to belong to, championing the latest cause against their government.
But he didn’t tell Darien any of this. Darien still wanted to do things by the book.
He’d thrown out that book a long time ago.
“It’s not like anybody is going to miss him.”
“Just tell me one thing…was Roman Cardiff involved in this?”
“Are you going to throw my father-in-law in jail? That’s what you really want, right? Someone to pay for the Stradivarius missing all these years?”
Darien leaned his elbow patches on the desk, his brown eyes intense. “I thought that’s what you wanted, to solve this thing.”
Falcon picked up a map of drug houses in the Spanish Quarter. “We solved it. Ruggiero’s going to die in a cell. Luciano is in the English Channel.”
“Not all of him is in the English Channel.”
He glanced over the top of the map. “They found some of him?”
Darien pursed his lips and gave a curt nod.
“Hmm.” He went back to reading the map.
“Falcon,” Darien waited for him to look up from the grid before continuing. Darien’s head was tilted as it was when he was cross-examining a witness he considered a half-wit. “We don’t have all the answers yet. We don’t work like this.”
“We?”
Darien flung his hands up. “Before her, you didn’t work like this!”
Falcon chuckled. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing all these years, consulting my conscience before I kill? I don’t have one, my friend. What was it you called me? An assassin?”
Darien went pale. “This anger, it’s not like you. It’s dangerous.”
Falcon put down the street grid. “You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.”
“All right. It’s going to take the rest of my life, but I’m going to hunt every last one of these fuckers down.”
“Why?”
Falcon leaned across the desk and said quietly, “One day, I hope you will know.”
“And what will your fiancée do while you are on this killing spree?”
That’s what Falcon didn’t know. Damn, he couldn’t have it both ways. But he couldn’t just go on a honeymoon with his bride knowing il Dragone was out there. If he did, he and Angel wouldn’t live happily ever after.
Darien sighed, and stood up. “I guess this means you’re not ready to go back to New York.”
“I’m going to Naples for a few days.”
Darien stared at him with Signor Tarcisio’s eyes, and Falcon was back in il Dragone’s ceremonial chamber the night the Duke’s old friend Umberto was killed. Those eyes had pleaded with him not to fight. But he would die fighting.
Darien shook his head and walked to the door. “I’m leaving in a couple of hours. Can I trust you to not kill the better half of Europe before the wedding?”
“Will you be there?”
Darien stopped, but did not turn around. “Of course. Of course, I am coming to the wedding.”
Chapter Sixteen
Falcon paid a visit to Ruggiero in prison but the old man wouldn’t tell him anything he could use in his fight against il Dragone. Ruggiero just stared him down.
However, Falcon got lucky in the Spanish Quarter. Not only had he hit Naples, but a thorough search of the formerly corrupt and now dead policeman’s apartment yielded information that led him back to Forlì, and beyond.
He walked with a briefcase full of his collection of il Dragone rings, earrings and anklets, not wanting to leave it in the hotel room for any interested parties. He’d lost count of how many members of il Dragone he’d hunted and killed, but his system was almost fool-proof now. Relieve them of il Dragone’s symbols and they couldn’t scale church walls or disappear into da
rkness. They were helpless earth-bound devils without the symbols that contained their master’s blood.
After a productive trip to Palermo, he’d killed enough and gathered sufficient information for his next outing, which would have to wait until after the honeymoon.
He’d never admit it to anyone, but he wanted to see for himself that the fire dragon was gone, banished to hell, and that it stayed there. The rubble was just the way they’d left it two months ago, as if no one wanted to go near the place. The fertile ground was cool this early December.
Falcon had a fire going in no time.
Who would guess that hell’s gates had been open on this farmland for centuries? he thought, as the suitcase filled with jewelry burned.
Falcon made it to England with one week to spare before the wedding.
The women were mad at him for staying away so long, but what he’d accomplished in three weeks was worth it.
The only way Angel would meet him in the Wilton room was if he agreed to hand over his cell until after the wedding. He’d thought it was that simple. He even handed over his laptop, but the moment Amelie and his mother left them to supervise the setup of decorations, Angel stopped talking to him.
Technically, she hadn’t been talking to him, but had been engaged in the wedding discussion that ended when their mothers had left the room. Now, she was untouchable in a dark tube dress that molded to her sweet body. Her fork traced circles in the wild rice.
He decided to stick with a topic she couldn’t ignore. “So much for just friends and family,” he commented, looking over the guest lists.
“They are friends and family. Zia Delfina says some of them are coming because they haven’t seen you in so long they don’t believe you’re still alive. They want to see for themselves.” Angel looked pointedly at him. “You’ll have to spend some time with them.”
He looked at the lists again and saw some names he recognized, but most he couldn’t even guess. “Bene. One big, happy family.”
Angel was pushing around what must be an interesting tidbit on her plate.
He put his fork down and covered her hand with his. “One kiss. I promise it will make you feel better.”
Angel slid her hand from underneath his. “Where were you?”
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