Tom nodded, his whole body shaking with cold.
“Did you get it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Where’s Archie?” he croaked.
“We’ve found out he’s being held at the U.S. Consulate. What happened to Turnbull?”
“He
didn’t
make
it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
REKI FONTANKI EMBANKMENT, ST. PETERSBURG
1:36 a.m.
Dominique heard voices and edged her head around the corner. Viktor, her hair still wet, was talking earnestly in a low voice to three of her men. They were listening intently, nodding every so often as if she was giving them instructions. Dominique wondered what Viktor was up to as she watched her handing them several large bags. One of the men then glanced through the open door into the room beyond it and asked something. Viktor’s eyes followed his, then looked around with a smile.
“Da.”
A board creaked under Dominique’s bare feet and she snatched her head back. The voices stopped, then she heard the sound of footsteps fading away.
“You can come out now.” Viktor’s voice echoed down the corridor. Dominique stepped sheepishly out of the shadows. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to
. . . Is he all right?” “He’s fine,” Viktor replied. “We got him just in time. He needs to get some sleep, that’s all.” “And Turnbull?”
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Viktor shook her head.
“How . . . ?” asked Dominique.
“Tom didn’t say. But I told him about Archie. He’s going to go there in the morning and find out why they’re holding him.”
“Can I see him?”
“He’s asleep,” said Viktor, shutting the door gently. “Leave him now.”
“Okay.”
There was a long, awkward pause as both women stood in silence, neither wanting to be the first to move.
“You and Tom,” Viktor said eventually, “you never . . . ?” She let the question hang there suggestively.
“Tom and me?” Dominique laughed. “Is that what you think?”
“I just wondered. I mean, you’re very beautiful and he . . . he’s very . . .”
“Tom.” Dominique finished the sentence for her, smiling to herself at the effect that Tom had on some women, even women like Viktor who appeared to have no soft edges left. His strength seemed to appeal to their need to be protected, his vulnerability to their desire to protect. She had never really felt that way about him herself. There was just too much history there with his father.
“I just wondered . . .” Viktor shrugged, not sounding as casual as she had probably intended.
“The thing about Tom,” said Dominique slowly, “is that he’s not very good with people. It’s not his fault. It’s what he’s had to do to survive. Everyone who he has ever relied on has ended up leaving him. It’s easier for him just to never get close. That way he’s never disappointed and he never lets anyone else down.”
“And you? What about you—and Archie? He’s close to the two of you?”
“Yes. But only because neither of us really needs him. He knows that we are strong enough to survive on our own. In fact, I think that’s the one thing in life he’s really scared of.”
“What?”
336 james twining
“Someone else depending on him.”
“Maybe he just hasn’t yet found the person he wants to have depending on him,”
Viktor speculated.
“Maybe,” Dom agreed with a smile. Somehow, she wasn’t so sure.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
U.S. CONSULATE, FURSHTADSKAYA STREET,
ST. PETERSBURG
January 11—8:30 a.m.
By the time Tom got to the U.S. Consulate the following morning, a small queue had already formed outside the main door. He patiently took his place in it, mulling over the previous night’s events. Images of Turnbull and Kristenko, the lost Bellak, Renwick’s sneering face, and his brush with death at the bottom of the Neva kept flashing into his head.
“Yes?” The voice of the suited and spectacled functionary sitting at the front desk interrupted his thoughts.
“I want to see the Consul General,” Tom said. The man was waving most people toward the visa section, and he seemed to welcome the change in inquiry, looking up at him with a lazy smile.
“Do you have an appointment, sir?”
“No.”
His smile faded. “Then I’m afraid I can’t help you. All appointments have to be arranged in advance with his office and cleared by security. Next.” He looked past Tom to the person standing behind him.
“It’s about a man you’re holding in custody here,” Tom insisted. “I need to speak to him.”
338 james twining
The functionary nodded to two marines, who peeled themselves away from the wall and approached Tom from either side.
“Please step out of the line, sir,” one of them droned robotically. Tom ignored him, still fixing the seated man with a firm stare.
“You’ve arrested a friend of mine. A British citizen. You’re holding him here. I demand to be told what he’s been charged with and to see him.”
“Get him out of here,” the functionary instructed the two marines, his nonchalant manner suggesting that he’d handled similar situations many times before. They grabbed Tom, one holding each arm, and marched him toward the door, lifting him clear off the floor so that his feet dangled uselessly beneath him.
“Get your hands off me,” Tom shouted, struggling vainly, wincing from the pain in his shoulder.
“Hold it,” a voice called out over Tom’s shouts and the excited hubbub of the crowd in the reception area. The marines stopped and turned Tom to face the direction the voice had come from. “Are you here about Archie Connolly?”
“Yeah,” Tom said with relief. “You know about him?”
“Sure.” The man smiled and waved the marines away with an impatient flick of his hand. They released Tom and returned to their posts, their faces never once registering any expression. “I’m Special Agent Cliff Cunningham. Maybe I can help.”
“Is he still here?”
“Absolutely. Mr. Connolly is helping us with our inquiries. Voluntarily, of course.”
Tom didn’t comment. The idea of Archie voluntarily helping anyone, especially the Yanks, was ridiculous.
“Look, whatever he’s done or you think he’s done, it’s just a mistake.”
“Why don’t we talk this over inside,” said Cunningham. He turned to the functionary at the desk who had just tried to have Tom thrown out. “It’s okay, Roland, he’s with me. Sign
him
in,
will
you?”
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Armed with a visitor’s pass, Tom followed Cunningham through a reinforced door that another marine stationed on the other side buzzed open for them, through an anonymous labyrinth of secretarial pens and dingy offices, down a flight of stairs, and then along a narrow corridor that seemed to have six cells along it, three down each side.
“He’s in here.” Cunningham reached the far left-hand cell and swiped a card through a magnetic reader. The door buzzed open.
“Archie?” Tom stepped inside the cell.
“Tom.” Archie’s face broke into a smile. “You took your time.” He was lying on a narrow bed, thumbing through a two-year-old edition of GQ, a cigarette jammed in his mouth.
“You two must have a lot of catching up to do,” Cunningham said coldly. He slammed the cell door shut.
Tom stared at the closed door, then turned to Archie and gave a shrug.
“Nice escape plan, mate,” Archie grunted, turning back to the magazine. “What did you do? Smuggle a spoon in so we can dig our way out?”
“He’s pleasant, isn’t he?” Tom sat down heavily on the bed next to him.
“Tell me about it. I’ve had to put up with his shit all night long.”
&
nbsp; “What does he think you’ve done now?”
“Oh, nothing much,” said Archie. “Just the odd murder or thirty. Including Lasche, it seems.”
“Lasche? But we saw him only a few days ago.”
“Exactly. That’s when they think I did it.”
“But why?”
“For the same reason they think I killed Lammers’s niece.”
“She’s dead too?” Tom gasped.
“Apparently, poor thing.” Archie sighed. “This whole business is getting out of control. They think I was trying to cover my tracks.”
“Tracks from what?” Tom said dismissively. “This is total bullshit. You haven’t done anything.”
340 james twining
“I know that. You know that. But as far as they’re concerned, I’m not only involved in a theft that Lasche got me to carry out from some museum in the States, but I then gassed a roomful of neo-Nazis I’d recruited to do the job for me. Their kids too.” Archie spoke with his eyes still fixed on the magazine.
“You’re joking, right?”
“I wish I was.”
“Well, what is it you’re meant to have stolen, exactly?”
“An Enigma machine.”
“An Enigma machine?” Tom’s tone switched from outrage to interest.
“Yeah.” Archie looked up, his face lifting with sudden understanding. “Why, you don’t think . . .”
“Why not?” Tom nodded slowly. “A neo-Nazi group. A wartime decoder. Lasche supposedly involved, then turning up dead. There must be a connection.”
“Well, the Enigma’s a collectible piece, I guess. But I don’t see what use it would be to anyone.”
“Unless you needed to decode something.”
“The final Bellak painting!” Archie exclaimed. “We need to get in touch with Kristenko again and get it out.”
“Unfortunately, it’s a bit late for that,” Tom said bitterly, briefly recounting the previous night’s events for Archie’s benefit.
“So Renwick’s got the painting and the Enigma.” Archie sighed. “We’ve got nothing.”
“Maybe we do,” said Tom.
“Maybe we do what?”
“Have something. My camera. The one I loaned to Kristenko. I grabbed it off him when I was in the vault. It’ll be ruined, but the memory card should still work.”
“I don’t see . . .”
“He took photos of the painting, didn’t he? To prove that he had it. If we’ve got that, we might not need the painting at all.”
“Then we just need to get out of here,” said Archie, motioning toward the steel door.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
9:27 a.m.
Before Tom could answer, the door flew open and Bailey marched into the room. He didn’t bother introducing himself, fixing Tom instead with an excited stare. “Tell me about this painting.”
“You’ve been listening?” Tom shot back, furious with himself for not having been more careful. Bailey indicated a small black hole over the bed that he hadn’t noticed before.
“I was on the first shift in case you two got careless. Don’t worry, it’s turned off now.”
“Like hell it is.” Tom eyed him with distrust.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on.”
“We’re not telling you nothing,” Archie snorted.
“Look, you’re in deep shit here. Real deep. You want to have a chance of getting out of here, you gotta share. Then maybe I can help.”
“Why should you help us?”
“If my boss knew I was in here, he’d kill me,” Bailey said earnestly. “But I’m here because, for better or worse, I go with my gut. Always have. And my gut tells me you guys weren’t bullshitting just now.”
“You first, then,” Tom said slowly. “What is it you think we’re involved in?”
342 james twining
“Two weeks ago a guard was murdered and an Enigma machine was stolen from the NSA Museum in Maryland. We got a tip-off that a neo-Nazi group in Idaho called the Sons of American Liberty were involved. When we went to check out their HQ, someone had locked them all in a booby-trapped room. Every single person inside died. Gassed.”
“But how did that lead you to me?” Archie asked.
“We had an eyewitness. His description was a good match to a man filmed boarding a flight to Zurich. When we checked out the names of Zurich-based major players in the military memorabilia game, Lasche’s name came up, so we staked out his hotel. Then you showed up.”
“And . . . ?”
“And matched the description.”
“That’s impossible,” Archie said dismissively. “I don’t even know where Idaho is. Like I told you, I was in Vegas when this happened.”
“Vegas?” said Tom in surprise. “Is that what you were up to?”
“Do we have to go into this now?” Archie said, rolling his eyes, before turning back to Bailey. “Show me the picture.”
Bailey reached into his jacket and drew out a sheet of paper. Archie unfolded it, studied the CCTV image, and looked up skeptically. “That’s not me,” he said with a mixture of relief and indignation.
“That’s Lasche’s nurse,” Tom said grimly, snatching the paper from his hands.
“Lasche’s nurse?” Bailey stammered. “Are you sure?”
“I never forget a face. Heinrich, I think he said his name was.”
“You’re right, now you mention it.” Archie nodded his agreement. “He was there when we went to see him the other day.”
“What’s Lasche’s involvement in all this?” Tom asked.
“Well,” Bailey began uncertainly, still staring uneasily at the picture, “we guessed that Lasche was the middleman for the Enigma machine. That you’d stolen it and then sold it to him.”
“That’s
about
the
only
thing
you’ve
got
right
so
far,”
Tom
the black sun 343
said. “Except that it wasn’t Archie he sent to steal it but Heinrich. Lasche must have been betrayed by whoever he sold the machine to. That same person murdered the Sons of American Liberty and, in all probability, Lasche as well, to ensure no one could make the link back to him.”
“ ‘Him’ being . . . ?” Bailey quizzed.
“In my opinion Harry Renwick, a.k.a. Cassius—or someone acting on his behalf. Check your records. Last time I looked, he was on your top ten most wanted list. He’s the one you should be looking for. He’s behind this whole thing, I’m sure of it.”
“But what’s this got to do with a painting? How did you get mixed up in it?”
Tom paused for a second, debating how much he was willing to reveal. His natural instinct was to say nothing, but there was something about Bailey, an honesty allied with an eagerness that inspired a sense of grudging confidence. He took a snap decision to trust him. But only as far as he had to.
“We were approached by a guy called William Turnbull from MI6’s counterterrorist team,” Tom began slowly. “They were worried about a terrorist group in Germany who had linked up with Renwick. They wanted our help to find out what they were up to.”
“Why you? Did you know him or something?”
“He’s an old friend of the family,” Tom said with a hollow laugh. “Anyway, it turns out they were looking for something. Something that was hidden at the end of the war. We think the painting is the final clue to revealing its location. I only found out about the Enigma machine just now, but I’m guessing that he needed one in order to unlock some sort of coded message written on the painting.”
“And how did that lead you to Lasche?”
“It was just dumb coincidence. The painting was hidden by a secret order of highranking SS officers. Lasche is the expert on that period, so we wanted his opinion. We had no idea that Renwick had already involved him in the Enigma theft.”
&nb
sp; “And
the
girl—Maria
Lammers—what
was
her
involvement?”
344 james twining
“Her uncle was a member of the Order,” Archie explained. “We were just following the trail to see whether it led anywhere. But why Renwick should want to kill her, I don’t know.” He shook his head, mystified. “She knew nothing.”
“You’re right.” Tom frowned. “It’s like what happened in the nightclub. There’s something else going on here that we’re missing.”
Bailey blew out his cheeks, leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed. When he opened them again, he stared down at the floor, his voice a monotone. “Okay. You two stay here. I’m going to check some of this out.”
Tom jerked his head toward the door. “Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
9:35 a.m.
Bailey’s eyes widened as the search results flashed up in front of him. HENRY J. RENWICK, A.K.A. CASSIUS. RACKETEERING INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT
ORGANIZATIONS (RICO)—MURDER (18 COUNTS), CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT
MURDER, CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT EXTORTION, ARMED ROBBERY, HANDLING
STOLEN GOODS, CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MONEY LAUNDERING, EXTORTION, MONEY LAUNDERING . . .
He gave a low whistle. Maybe there was more to Kirk’s story than he’d thought. “Find something good?” Cunningham had stepped into the room behind him.
“Not sure yet.” Bailey flicked the screen to another program and turned to face Cunningham with a nervous smile.
Carter’s instructions had been clear: observe and report. Nothing more. By going into Kirk and Connolly’s cell unaccompanied, he had stepped well outside that remit. How 346 james twining
could he explain his decision to Cunningham, let alone Carter? “You come up with anything on Connolly?” Bailey asked casually.
“No. We’re still trying to run him down, but it looks like we’ve never come across him before. I’m going to check with Interpol.”
“Makes sense.” “We caught a real break with Kirk, huh?” Cunningham said with a grin. “How’s that?” “Him just walking in here. We didn’t need those extra men to go and take him down after all.” “Yeah, but we’ve still got nothing on him,” Bailey pointed out. “We got time.” Cunningham shrugged. “He ain’t going nowhere.”
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