“ETA?” Val asked.
“We have Talia’s GPS track. Eddie estimates three minutes to the hotel and another two for Ivanov to reach the room.”
A blow-dryer kicked on in the background. “Not enough time. I can pick up the glass, but the carpet is soaked. I need eight minutes, give or take.”
“Fine. Execute the contingency plan.”
The contingency plan. In the sedan, watching Bazin grumble and growl as he waited for an opening in the traffic, Talia cringed. Tyler had unleashed the mad bomber.
And the mad bomber was overjoyed. “Merveilleux, mon patron! I thought you would never ask.”
Once he had found an opening and pulled into traffic, Bazin reached back between the seats, waving a phone. “Dr. Ivanov, you must call director of conference. He is waiting.”
Ivanov accepted the phone and laid it on the leather between himself and Talia, expression darkening. “I am afraid both the director and our chemistry must wait. There are more pressing matters. What can you tell me about Lukon and Gryphon?”
“Try not to give away the rest of the plan,” Val said.
Too late. Talia had already started down a path of truth. Veering off now would raise Ivanov’s suspicions. She took a gamble. “We believe Lukon will go after the Mark Seven during the expo and use it to reach Gryphon.”
“Aaannd CIA girl gives up the goods,” Val said, blow-dryer still running. “Well done, Ta—”
“No.” Tyler cut the grifter off. “She made a good call. When forced to surrender information to maintain a cover, give the enemy a morsel easily deduced from the data they already have, thus building trust.”
He had quoted a Farm manual, word for word. Talia knew because she had seen the same quote in her eidetic mind before she made the gamble. Tyler was letting his Agency background show.
It worked. Ivanov picked up the phone, tapping it on his knee. “You may be right. We caught a nano-drone spying on our preparations for Friday’s aerial demonstration. The operator destroyed the device before my men could grab it. Thanks to the explosion, the conference director is treating this as a terrorist act, but I believe it was Lukon.” He let out a breath, dialing. “Anything else—some bread crumb I can offer the director?”
Talia shook her head. “I’m sorry. And don’t tell the conference director anything. Let him run with the terrorist idea. Bringing up Lukon will only complicate things for you.”
“Thatta girl,” Tyler interjected. “Good damage control. Way to coach the mark.”
As he finished dialing, Ivanov gave Talia a grim smile that said the two of them were in sync. He raised the phone to his ear. “Ah, Portia. Questo è il Dottor Ivanov di Avantec. Direttore della conferenza, per favore.”
“Speaking of le dommage,” Darcy said. “The curtain is rising. Let the show begin!”
Bazin turned the sedan onto a roundabout near the center of Milan. Two cars ahead, a pillar of steam shot up with a tremendous boom, jettisoning a manhole cover high into the air. The Russian stomped on the brakes and shouted out the window.
“Keep your voice down.” Ivanov covered the phone. “Deal with this. Find a new route. I must get back to the hotel.”
The impending jam left Bazin no choice but to leave the roundabout. He made the first available turn.
Darcy’s voice on the link was positively diabolical. “Yes. Now he takes Via Dante. Très approprié, no?”
Talia still had to lift the key. Val gave her instructions. “Now is the time. Start by looking with your eyes, not your hands. Look for signs of the key in his breast pocket—the tiniest bulge in his jacket or a wrinkle running opposite the others.”
Talia saw it, an odd wrinkle on his left side. Bazin made a lane change, and Talia used the sway of the car to make a play for the key. She couldn’t do it.
She retreated, pretending to look out the passenger window, and whispered through her teeth. “The shoulder restraint is holding his jacket too close to his chest. I can’t reach inside.”
“Not a problem,” Darcy said. “I am here to help. Look to the left and loosen your shoulder strap. Prepare to steal the key on my count.”
Talia loosened the strap and bent forward to look out through Ivanov’s window. A round object came flipping down between the rooftops—the manhole cover from the roundabout. How quickly Talia had forgotten it. What had Darcy been up to?
The cover smashed through the overhanging wires of a trolley system. Pedestrians screamed and jumped out of the way as it clanged to the ground. The central trolley wire, laden with ceramic coils, collapsed onto the tracks and sent up a fountain of sparks. With a pop-pop-pop-pop, small explosive charges flashed beneath all four wheels. The trolley rolled from its place, picking up speed as it coasted downhill to meet the sedan at the next intersection.
“De toute beauté.” Darcy clapped loud enough to be heard over the link. “Now make your lift in three, two, one . . .”
Bazin swerved to dodge the cable car, running up onto the sidewalk and smashing through an empty café table. The move sent Talia flying across the rear passenger bench into Ivanov, who dropped his phone and caught her.
By the time Bazin had settled the sedan onto Via Dante once more, Talia was back on her side, fixing her hair with one hand and stuffing the key into her purse with the other. Ivanov searched the floorboard for his phone, and she used the moment to give a report to the others. She covered her mouth and lowered her chin to her shoulder as if coughing. “I’ve got it. But Darcy missed. We’re still heading for the hotel.”
“I missed nothing,” the chemist said. “Look to your right.”
Talia glanced out her window and saw Darcy on a rooftop one street over. The chemist waved both hands side to side and wiggled her hips. She pointed at the street below. Through the gaps between the buildings, Talia saw the trolley, still rolling.
Via Dante ended at a grand piazza—a thousand square meters of centuries-old stone, ending at the steps of an alabaster cathedral with more Gothic spires than Talia cared to count. Bazin had nowhere to go. He hopped the curb, plowing through a steady eruption of pigeons.
“I take shortcut,” he said in his butchered English. “I have you hotel in no time.” He turned the wheel and set a course for the narrow street south of the cathedral.
Glancing back, Talia saw the trolley emerge from its own street, hop the curb as well, and crash into an ancient lamppost, crushing the attached electrical box. The four lights at the top brightened and exploded. The trolley had stopped, but that was not the end of it. The destruction of the electrical box set off a chain reaction.
The lights of all the lampposts in that row brightened and burst, one after the other, rippling past the sedan like two hot rods in a drag race. The last lamp went off moments before Bazin crossed in front of it on his way to the side street. The post dropped like a felled tree and smashed down into the hood, bringing the sedan to a screeching halt.
“What have you done?” Ivanov punched the back of Bazin’s seat.
The Russian tried to answer, but the airbag—a little delayed—went off in his face.
On the comms, Darcy made a popping sound with her lips. “Voilà. Très magnifique! That, my friends, is art.”
Chapter
fifty-
one
PIAZZA DEL DUOMO
MILAN, ITALY
THE TEAM MET a short distance from the cathedral, on the rooftop level of a parking garage where Val and Mac had parked the Tesla and the van nose to nose. Down in the piazza the shadows of evening crept in on all sides while mystified workmen lifted the lamppost back up onto its marble pedestal, likely wondering how all its bolts had managed to shear at the same moment. Bazin and Ivanov stood trapped beside the ruined sedan, arguing with a pair of policemen. The Russian crumpled up a ticket and threw it to the ground.
Escaping had not been a problem for Talia after the accident. “Looks like you have a lot to deal with,” she had said to Ivanov, and retreated to the nearest unde
rground train station, only to resurface on the other side and make her way to the garage.
Tyler had a scope video of Sibby’s explosion and Darcy’s video of the sedan getting crushed replaying in a loop on GROND’s main screen. “Sloppy work, ladies and gentlemen. This is sloppy work.”
Darcy drew a sharp breath. “Sloppy? What is sloppy? Not my work!”
“You could have killed me.” Talia thrust a hand toward the screen. “You could have killed a lot of people with that manhole cover and the runaway trolley. You turned Milan into a giant Rube Goldberg device.”
“With glorious precision, no? You are privileged. Today you experienced beauté en action.” Darcy pushed out a bottom lip. “It is only a shame that the world will not see. Monsieur Lukon will not allow me to post the video.”
Tyler lowered his forehead to his hand, rubbing his temples. “Lukon. It’s just Lukon.”
“Yes. Whatever. And if not for me, we could not have stolen that.” Darcy tilted her head toward the quartz key, which Eddie had placed in a portable 3-D scanner.
“Sloppy or not, we got the job done,” Val said, glancing north toward the hotel, a few blocks away. “Eddie will duplicate the conductive crystal and digital code from the key, and I can return the original to Ivanov. He’ll never know it was gone.” She gave Talia a nod. “Solid lift. And you handled a tough situation well. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time.”
Talia bit her lip, lowering her eyes. “And I’m . . . sorry I goaded him into calling you old. That was uncalled for.”
Finn waved his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m glad we’re all friends again, but aren’t we forgetting the explosion at the airfield? The key won’t do us any good if we can’t get to the Mark Seven.”
“He’s right,” Tyler said, “which brings us back to the sloppy work. Eddie, break it down for them.”
The geek glanced up at the video of Sibby’s demise. “As you can see, I was forced to destroy Sibby, thanks to that big oaf over there.”
“Who ya callin’ an oaf, Wee Man?” Mac took a menacing step toward Eddie.
Darcy stopped him with a kick to the shin. “Leave him alone. You crashed his toy.”
“Why, you crazy—”
“Hey!” Tyler ended the confrontation with a single clap. “Pay attention. Both of you.”
Eddie let his scowl linger on Mac for a moment, then tilted his head toward the video. “I’ve been monitoring calls in and out of the expo’s main office at the Excelsior. The organizers are on high alert. They now think their big gathering of defense contractors is a terrorist target.”
“Which means they’ll be bringing in extra security tonight,” Val said. “And I expect some of the defense contractors will bring in more of their own. The French have already pulled up stakes and left.”
Consciously or unconsciously, they all turned to look at Darcy. She shrugged. “Yes. That sounds correct.”
“The point,” Finn said, “is that short of a frontal assault with a platoon of Marines, we’ll never get to the Mark Seven. Management is turning their little airfield expo into an open-air Fort Knox. We’re done.” He brushed his hands together and held them up. “I’m out. I’m not getting nicked for this.”
“You’re out?” Val turned on him, scowling. “Well, aren’t you a fair-weather thief?”
“At least I am a proper thief. Look at the mess you made of a simple break and enter. You grifters are all talk and no skill.”
Val’s jaw dropped. “All talk?”
“Nothing but hot air. And don’t blame me. Talk to the gorilla and the geek. They’re the ones who dropped the drone.”
The discussion turned into a shouting match with everyone pointing fingers at everyone else. Talia was about to lose her thieves, along with what little control she still held over the mission. In the crucible of need and pressure, an idea came to her. She shouted it out before it had fully formed in her mind. “A balloon!”
The shouting stopped. They all looked at her, and Talia struggled to flesh out the solution, gears turning as she spoke. “We don’t need the Mark Seven. All we need is access to Gryphon.”
“A beast who lives in the deadly domain o’ the mesosphere,” Mac said. “And in case you’ve forgotten, no other craft can get us up there.”
“Yes there is . . . I think.” Talia bit her lip, gauging their reactions. Mac was against her. Finn was coming around. Eddie just looked confused. “Listen. We don’t need some high-tech rocket-jet. All we need is a balloon. Finn uses them all the time. I’ve seen it. Twice. He could jump to Gryphon the way he jumped down to the Shard penthouse.”
The burglar seemed to consider the idea. “Most of those balloons peak in the stratosphere. I’d need a special version to get all the way to the mesosphere.”
“Do mesospheric balloons even exist?” Tyler asked.
“A couple. Maybe. I’ve heard rumors of two or three groups building rigs to break the BASE jumping altitude record. To do it, they’ll have to go at least that high.”
“On it.” Eddie’s confusion dropped away and he turned to his workstation. Search engine windows came up, and a few seconds later, a satellite image zoomed in on the Alps. “Found one. They call themselves XPC, for Extreme Para-corps. They have a hangar in Lauterbrunnen Valley, three hours north of the chateau.” He spun his chair around, grinning and rubbing his hands together. “Who’s up for another road trip?”
Chapter
fifty-
two
CHATEAU TICINO
CAMPIONE D’ITALIA, SWITZERLAND
TALIA WATCHED CONRAD push a cart with prime rib warming over hot coals across the stone floor of the great room. He had guilted Tyler into allowing the team a hasty supper before departing for their nighttime mission to Lauterbrunnen, lest his afternoon’s work go to waste.
The cook stopped beside Talia’s chair, sliced off a piece, and laid it on a plate, adding diced rutabaga and a dab of some mint-green concoction. “The first portion goes to the cook’s favorite. The dip is a creamy horseradish with a touch of dill, for both zest and color. It sounds sharp, my dear, but trust me. The effect is mild enough to let the natural flavors of the rib retain primacy.”
How could she refuse? Talia accepted the plate and balanced it on her knee. “Thank you. But where is—” She stopped. In that moment, Talia could not bring herself to say Lukon in reference to Tyler. “Where is our host?”
Conrad pressed on with his cart, making a subtle tilt of his head toward the foyer.
Tyler shuffled in backward, followed by Finn, both grunting with the weight of a large heavy-duty case. They set it down at the center of the great room.
“What’ve ya got there, lads?” Mac asked, while at the same time nudging Conrad in a silent demand for an extra slice of meat.
“Weapons.” Tyler pressed a latch, and the case cracked open with a hiss. The lid rose on its own. Six submachine guns with helical magazines lay inside, nestled in gray foam.
The Scotsman set his plate on the floor and drew out one of the guns. “Now yer speakin’ mah language.” He checked the action as Tyler addressed the team.
“Don’t let the word balloon fool you, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight we’re stealing a large and complex aircraft—so large we have to bring a box truck in addition to GROND.”
“And XPC is unlikely to give it up without a fight.” Finn let out an embarrassed chuckle. “Let’s face it. These are my people. They live for late nights, Red Bull, and near-death experiences. That makes them unpredictable. We have no choice but to go in armed.”
When he pulled out the helical magazine, Mac’s face turned sour. He removed a bullet and held it up. “What’s this? A clay round?”
“Nonlethals,” Tyler said with a nod. “To the uninitiated, a clay round feels like the real thing. One shot to the chest and a target will think he’s dying. If he’s wearing a thin shirt, he’ll bleed too.” He walked around the room, passing a weapon each to Talia and Darcy. “Avoid head shots. Those
can kill.”
“Cool.” Eddie sat forward out of the lounger to grab one for himself, but Finn slapped the lid closed, nearly catching his fingers. Eddie jerked his hand back. “I don’t get a gun?”
“You’ll be staying in the van.” Tyler paused in his walk around the great room, standing next to Mac, who did not look happy. “Problem, Mr. Plucket?”
The Scotsman laid his weapon on the arm of the couch. “How can you be the Lukon we’ve all heard aboot? Am I to believe you’ve become the world’s most merciful assassin?”
Tyler’s voice went flat. “Believe what you will. But we do this my way.”
“An’ what if I per-fer to carry a real gun?”
Talia watched the Scotsman, wary of his tone. She saw his hand, behind the arm of the couch and out of Tyler’s view, moving to his waistband. She dropped her plate. “Look out!”
Conrad had Tyler covered. With unnatural quickness for his age, he flung his carving knife across the room.
Tyler caught it inches from Mac’s chest and let the momentum spin the blade up under the Scotsman’s chin. He moved behind and locked his other arm across Mac’s forehead. The knife, smeared with juice from the prime rib, rested against the man’s jugular. “Don’t move, unless you truly want to meet the assassin you so admire. He’s always here, beneath the surface.”
Mac froze, eyes seething.
Tyler bent close to his ear. “If you ever thought life was precious, think how much more so it is for the man who knows a thousand ways to end it.” He pressed inward with the blade, making Mac draw an involuntary breath. “I remember every kill. I mourn for their loved ones, and mourn even more for those who had none to love. Do not be so eager for such an existence. My job. My weapons. Understood?”
Mac gave him more of a quiver than a nod, afraid of the razor’s edge of Conrad’s carving knife.
“Good.” Tyler reached down to confiscate the pistol at Mac’s back. Once he had it, he released the brute and tossed the knife back to Conrad, who caught it with an expert hand. “Enjoy your meal, then put on something black. We leave in two hours.”
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